


Fallen Empires

by bluestoplights



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Crimes & Criminals, Criminal AU, F/M, Gen, Modern AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-18
Updated: 2015-07-23
Packaged: 2018-04-05 01:56:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 26,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4161261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluestoplights/pseuds/bluestoplights
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Modern!AU: As a string of murders by an elusive group continues to stretch the resources of Storybrooke's finest, Detective Emma Swan is forced to work with a local former criminal by the name of Killian Jones.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. called my name in the dark

**Author's Note:**

  * For [midwestwind](https://archiveofourown.org/users/midwestwind/gifts).



> IDK WHAT I'M DOING, YOU GUYS. I really, really don't. I have bits and pieces of this written besides the first chapter, but I honestly feel pretty stoked about it. I missed writing! I missed CS! If you've noticed, Come Together is marked complete because I really don't know what else to write, you know? All that would be left is an epilogue, which I might add one day. But for now...don't get your hopes up. 
> 
> This is going to be a little...darker? And angstier? And longer, I feel like, considering 10k of this is already written and I am NOWHERE NEAR even 10% of the way through of what I've got planned. I'll try to keep on top of warnings with each chapter, but for this one keep in mind there are pretty graphic depictions of violence. If that gets to you, don't feel bad about skipping over it. There's also pretty candid discussion of canon disabilities and child neglect, but not much more so than on the show. 
> 
> Also, let this be a disclaimer that I do not know anything - whatsoever - about the criminal justice system. I'm literally just basing this off of information gleaned from watching the I.D. channel and SVU marathons one too many times. Do not take this fic as legal advice. It will not end well for you.
> 
> This is for Ella's (ellasaidlumos), one of my faves, birthday!!! I hope you like it. You've always tried to kick me in the ass to try to get me to write more when I whine about wanting to, so this doubles as a gift and HEY LOOK I'M FINALLY DOING IT AGAIN! I LOVE YOU AND AGAIN, I HOPE YOU LIKE THIS HOT MESS.
> 
> Huge, massive thank you to Amber (sentbyfools), who beta'd this for me. This would be a mess without her, or even more of one. I'd be a mess without her. I could go on, but this thing has a character limit and I bet 99% of you aren't reading this anyway.

 

Emma Swan is getting too goddamn old for this. **  
**

At the ripe old age of 28, she feels more bones creaking than the average 70 year old should. With an ice pack to her forehead where the criminal of the night hit her ( _Why was it always her they sent in to settle bar disputes, again?_ ), Emma does her best to will herself to complete the paperwork that now floods her desk. She doesn’t know how much she can say about a bar fight over what Taylor Swift song was superior ( _Why do 40 year old men had so many feelings about a bar’s song selection?_ ) and how many times she had to fill in their names ( _Why was their system not just digital by now?_ ), and she swears she would take breaking up another stupid fight over this.  
She barely gets past the first page of paperwork when a knock at the door of the station interrupts her.

"Rough night?"

Emma substitutes an answer for a scowl at the intruder, not looking up from the pages in front of her. She really has to get through these stupid forms, and it’s better to do it now than to procrastinate it until later when she’s feeling even less up to it.

"Hey, I told you I could have dealt with it." David holds his hands up in a pacifying gesture, which does nothing to mask the smirk threatening to appear on his face.

“I think you have too many feelings on band-aids and bullet holes to be up to the task.” she replies, not looking up from the paperwork in front of her.

"Wait, they were having bad blood over Bad Blood?" 

Emma groans at the pun.

He really hadn't changed a bit since they were kids.

Emma was eight when she began to become disillusioned with the foster system. At five the Swans left her to have a new baby, one that was theirs. Months later she met the Robertsons, who were more interested in the paycheck that came with her than in the prospect of becoming parents. The Johnsons locked her in a closet for five hours. Ms. Wellingston told her she was a sinner who would rot in hell after she checked out Harry Potter books from the library and Mr. Clint was too busy drinking to pick her up from school.

So it made sense that when Ruth Nolan took Emma in at 11 she was far from ready to erase all of her previous experiences because the social worker fed her the same old line.

_“This time it might be different.”_

It never really was, but the Nolans showed her that it could have been. She never missed a meal. Ruth never touched a hair on her head except to hug her. Emma didn’t have to deal with kids making fun of her for being  an orphan at school because David threatened them with bodily harm when they did. Ruth made it clear that she had no set ideas of what Emma should and shouldn’t be except for that she should feel loved. For once in her life, she didn’t feel like an orphan.

Emma felt loved.

But not even the Nolans were exempt. When David was 15 and Emma was 13, Ruth got sick. As months went on, she got sicker. She died a year after being diagnosed. David's estranged father (or, as David candidly called him, his glorified sperm donor) George got full custody of him. He had no use for Emma, a dirty foster kid who was left at the side of the road. He made it his mission to turn David into a son  - no, a heir - he could be proud of. David wasn’t so enthusiastic about the idea.

She started to think she might be cursed. David still insisted on writing to each other in her teen years, though. Even after she went to prison. After she had Henry, David - through some miracle - managed to take care of him until she got out and sent her updates on her son in her three months between giving birth and getting out. When she got out, David and his new wife, who he absolutely raved about in paragraphs of flowery praise, welcomed her into their home.

Emma wouldn’t trade her brother for the world.

Emma finally lifts her head up to cock her head towards him and reply, "You're my brother, not my babysitter. I'm perfectly capable of dealing with a bar fight."

"Hm." David ponders exaggeratedly, "I think I might have something a little more exciting than a drunk brawl for you to work on."

"Intriguing." Emma grins, pushing the paperwork aside for another time. It really could wait, after all.  "Is this about that mystery case Mulan has been hiding from us?"

"Could be." he teases, perched at the balls of his feet. David brings a file from behind his back and dangles it in front of her like a cat owner with a string. "You'll never know unless you manage to grab it from me."

Emma takes the bait and lunges from her seat. David only takes the file higher. "Too short."

"Are you twelve? Give me the stupid file, David."

David seems unprovoked by the insult, "I might be."

After another failed swipe involving standing on her chair - he just stood on his - she decides to go for a more diplomatic approach, "Do you want me to call your wife?"

“That’s a low blow, Emma!”

She swipes again, noting how his eyes bulge when she almost punches him in an attempt to grab above his head. “Give me the file and I won’t have to!”

David eventually relents with an exaggerated sigh, bringing the file down to her height. They both get down from their respective chairs, seemingly unembarrassed by their display. David still smiles like the cat that got the cream when he sees her jaw drop when she opens what he’s handed to her.

“We got new information on the S.A.?”

The Straw Agency, as they came to call themselves, was an organized crime syndicate that had been the bane of Storybrooke’s police force for a good part of the last five years. For such a young organization, their crimes had been pretty prolific. At first it started out as a robbery here (and really, Emma wasn’t exactly in a position to condemn there) with a breaking and entering there. All the force would have to do is go into the victim’s home or shop, give them a discount on a security system, and move on. Standard procedure, though a little more high stakes in a small town.

The station didn’t start to get really worried until reports of murders came in. There was a report of a man being chopped into pieces a few towns over. Another had his head stomped in with what looked to be a cane. What got to Emma the most was finding a woman with her heart literally ripped out of her chest with a knife in a grisly scene on the docks a year ago, a man’s severed hand not far from it.

Emma considered herself to have a relatively tough stomach. She held bullet wounds with her hands to staunch blood flow. She investigated a few pretty grisly murders back in Boston. What she saw that day put all that to shame. Emma can still remember David nearly passing out at the sight and the taste of bile in her throat when she threw up in the bushes.

The twisted thing was that the most sickening part of the scene wasn’t the blood and the separated organs. It was the fact that there wasn’t a shred of DNA evidence on the scene. There were no fingerprints. There was no hair. The woman’s face was maimed to the point it was unrecognizable and her murderer obviously knew what he was doing when he tore out her teeth. No dental records were able to be retrieved from her body. There wasn’t so much as a matching missing persons report. Even the severed hand, which one would think would be easy enough to match to its original owner.

Not so much.

If it weren’t for the agency’s calling card, they would have no idea it was them. The murderer had the fucking nerve to leave their business card at the scene, as they did with the other murders and the comparably petty crimes. No phone number, of course. They weren’t lucky enough to get an address. There were no names attached. All it had was THE STRAW AGENCY written across it in bold font.

(They tried to track the card back to any business card companies, too. No luck there.)

Whoever it was, they were proud of what they did enough to desire credit. Whoever it was, they also knew how to clean up their tracks enough to make sure that it was the agency and not the people behind it who got said credit.

It was so infuriating it was sickening and so sickening it was infuriating.

Which was why it was such a big deal that they finally seemed to have a lead. Dead end after dead end wore everyone down and made them all the more desperate to find whoever was behind all of this. Even just one person from the apparent agency would make all the difference to them, but they couldn’t even find one. All they had was a business card to go off of, and a depressingly thin file. The one David had just dangled in front of Emma’s face.

The file didn’t have a whole lot of new information included, just a vague tip - not even more than two sentences long - that had apparently been called in a few hours ago.

_“All the Gold which is under or upon the earth is not enough to give in exchange for virtue. Instead of digging for gold, let’s dig SA into the grave.”_

Emma scrunches her face, dissatisfied. “This is it? This is our tip?”

David gives her a half shrug half bounce, which she didn’t think was a possible motion but evidently was, and contends “That’s not all.”

“God, I hope not.” Emma’s frown is undeterred.

Right as David is sure to reveal the climax of his entire, stupidly choreographed announcement, Detective Lance Elliott walks through the door from the evidence locker. He takes the moment to inform Emma, of course, “Hey Detective Swan, we managed to track down the tipster. We’ve got a name and an address.”

“Now, that.” Emma perks up, “that we can work with.”

“You totally stole my line, Elliott!” David hollers after him, apparently annoyed by the intrusion.

Lance shrugs, not at all bothered. “You were taking too long.”

“I was building up the anticipation!”

Emma snorts. David only looks more offended.

\--

That’s how David and Emma end up at the front porch of a small cottage the next morning. If their tipster is looking for a non-descript area, he’s got it. He hardly even has neighbors, which adds to how sketchy this place feels.

“We have backup on standby as soon as we say the word.” David reminds her cautiously, right as she’s about to knock on the door.

Emma exhales. “Good.”

She knocks and waits with bated breath.

The door opens to reveal a man in his early thirties, clad in a leather jacket and a waistcoat that reveals more chest hair than is likely (definitely) appropriate. He has blue eyes and a light sprinkling of scruff on his face and, by the look of things, is exceptionally irritated by the interruption.

David keeps one hand firmly at his holster as Emma inquires, "Killian Jones?"

"I'm a little too bloody busy for house calls at the moment, sweetheart. Perhaps you-" He stills, eyes ignoring David completely and taking Emma in. "At second thought, my morning is freeing up. What might I help you with, Miss..."

"Detective Emma Swan with the Storybrooke Police Department." she identifies herself pointedly, holding up her badge and sending David a look over her shoulder that very clearly says _'Are you fucking kidding me with this guy?'_

"Ah." he nods, seeming unconcerned with the fact that the police are on his doorstep.

“Yeah. I believe you called earlier?”

“That would be me.” he smirks, gesturing with the hand perched on the doorframe. The other is noticeably hidden behind him.

Emma cranes her neck to peer around him and hopefully get a glimpse of what’s in his hands. She does not need to have to deal with some sociopath looking to invite some cops to kill with a gun behind his back.

Killian takes note of this, and with an exaggerated sigh slowly holds his hand - or lack thereof - out for their inspection. “Apologies, love. I’d grab the prosthetic but you seem to have caught me by surprise.”

“Just making sure you aren’t trying to kill us.” She frowns, setting her hands on hips. “How’d you lose the hand?”

“It up and crawled away, I believe you’re here to inquire about the tip I sent in? Rather track me down, might I add.”

Emma looks to David, who looks slightly chagrined. “This is a very serious criminal investigation, we had reasonable suspicion to believe you were involved more than your average bystander.”

“You got that out of a Plato quote? Hardly philosophical of you.” Jones fires back, undisturbed. “I called in a tip to do my best to help our local police, seeing as they clearly can’t solve this on their own..”

"So you're calling in a tip, that doesn’t make any sense, out of the goodness of your heart?"

"Does that surprise you? Perhaps you’re not reading closely enough."

Emma cocks her head to the side, scrunching up her face in disapproval. “Cute."

"I prefer devilishly handsome." Killian retorts with an arrogant smirk.

"And I would prefer to know what you were trying to get at.”

"Ah, but what would the fun in that be?"

Emma’s patience is quickly dwindling. "A lot more fun than pissing in front of three other guys in a cell, Jones."

"Oh, but we're working together, _Detective_." he practically purrs.

David pipes up, finally interrupting there tet-a-tee,“We didn’t agree to that.”

“So you don’t want to know what Rumplestiltskin's next move is?” Killian questions, rubbing at his temples as if he’s already become exasperated with their conversation. “Because I have a source who could be able to help you.”

Emma and David look at each other for a second in clear concern. Rumplestiltskin, from the whispers they’ve miraculous managed to hear if nothing else, is the head of the Straw Agency.

“We’ll just need you to come forward with your source so we can take them to talk to our people to make a statement. We need as many details as we can get, so we’ll need to take you in too, have you bring your lawyer down, and we’ll have to hand it off to our friends over in Portland…” David informs him as if he’s mentally checking off a list in his head.

“My source will be forced to work with the Portland PD, then?”

David replies quickly in an attempt to salvage the conversation, “I didn’t say that.”

“It certainly was implied.”

Emma feels like she’s watching two children bicker and laments to the sky above her, “Seriously?”

“I’ll take it you don’t want to know, then.” Jones comments glibly, “Very well.”

He shuts the door right in their faces.

Emma looks to David incredulously. David looks like he’s ready to knock the damn door down. In fact, he backs up a few feet and starts making the motions when Emma forcibly stops him.  

“Hey!” he cries, pouting like a seven year old who’s been denied candy.

Emma resists the temptation to stomp her foot. “David, you can’t break down the door if no one is in danger. This isn’t Law and Order!”

She tries knocking on his door as opposed to knocking it down, hoping she could get a response. “Jones? Come on, we just want to talk.”

To her surprise, she gets a reply muffled by the door between them. “Sorry, love, the only way we’re talking is if you find grounds to charge me on and wrangle my one hand into handcuffs. Best of luck on that!”

She could strangle him.

By the look on David’s face, he knows the feeling.

“Wrangle his one hand into handcuffs…” Emma repeats, feeling as if a piece just fitted into place as to who he was.  “Wait…”

“Can I knock down the door yet?”

“No.” Emma replies shortly.

He walks her a little away from the door and shout-whispers, “Emma, he’s playing coy about a serial killer! He could be the serial killer! This is exactly the kind of mind game someone who leaves a business card at a murder would play.”

“If you get the car, I’ll explain why.”

David seems insulted at the prospect. “Get in the car? Emma, I don’t know how much longer we’ll have this guy where we want him?”

“Just listen to me!” Emma growls, marching off in the direction of the cruiser.

“Fine.” David barks back, just as harshly as they’re getting into the car.

“Next time, I’m taking Marian.” Emma grumbles to her brother once they’re in the cruiser, buckling her seat belt a little too aggressively.

“It’s her day off. And, let me guess, so the psychopath can flirt with her too?” David asks disbelievingly. “I’m sure Robin would be pleased.”

Emma rolls her eyes for the upteenth time that day -- this has to be some sort of new record -- hitting her head against the seat of the car. “So you don’t scare away a potential source!”

“Didn’t you threaten him with public urination if he didn’t give up his source?”

“Public urination? Really, David?”

“Do you want to explain to me why you stopped me from knocking that guy’s door down or what?”

Emma doesn’t miss a beat, “His hand. It was missing.”

“Just because his hand is missing doesn’t mean he isn’t capable of murd-”

Emma rolls her eyes and cuts him off, “A year ago at the docks, we found a woman with her heart ripped out. What else did we find?”

David suddenly goes pale. “A hand. You think it’s connected.”

“We tried to get a DNA test with the hand, but couldn’t get a match. Guy calls in with a tip related to Rumplestitlskin - God, it’s so hard to take this seriously when he’s using a fucking fairytale name - and is missing a hand. I think it’s a little bit too much of a coincidence. We were able to test enough to tell that whoever killed that woman cut off another guy’s hand. That’s the other guy.”

“I wonder what made him wait a year.”

“Me too.” Emma replies grimly. “I also wonder why he’s not giving it all to us upfront and playing coy. I mean, the guy took his hand. That’s not really something people forgive and forget.”

“Unless they’re working together and Rumplestiltskin pissed him off…”

Emma nods, “My thoughts exactly. The murders didn’t start until after his hand was cut off. I wonder what the hell led up to that.”

\--

Their co-workers are, understandably, upset about the way this case is going when David and Emma mope their way back to the station.

“You are very lucky Mulan’s wife is sick today, you know. Mulan would be ripping us a new one if she were here.” is all Lance has to say.

Emma frowns, “We’re aware.”

“You were supposed to get him to cooperate.” Marian grumbles, “Not scare him off.”

“We’re aware of that too. He’d be more cooperative behind bars.” David complains, looking to Emma as if asking her to back him up.

Which gives her the idea, “He did say the only way we could get him to talk would be in handcuffs…”

“So, you want to find some reason to get him in here for?” Marian supplies, and Emma can only give her an admittedly pathetic grimace.

“Maybe?”

Marian only sighs, “Ethically…”

“Finding serial killers, Marian.” Emma gently reminds her. “Jones said it, not me.”

“I entirely support this idea.” David pipes up. “And Lance does too.”

Lance looks perturbed at David speaking for him, but only elbows him in reply.

Marian relents, “Fine. I’ll see what I can do.”

“You’re the best.”

\--

Sure enough, Marian didn’t disappoint. Emma pulled up to Jones’ house, by herself this time so David couldn’t repeat history.

She raps on the door. “Killian?”

“I was wondering when you’d come back.” Jones grins widely and she has to admit she’s a little surprised he even opened the door.

Hey, one less thing for her to have to deal with.

“Turn around.” is all she says.

“Well, I would prefer if we’d do this inside, but…”

She ignores him and begins to read him his Miranda rights, handcuffing his wrists together.

“What the bloody hell am I being arrested for?”

“Piracy. As I just recited to you.”

“Piracy? I realize I’m a bit of a dashing rapscallion, but I hardly think I’ve been looting gold from unsuspecting carriages.”

Emma only smiles, pushing him gently in the direction of the cruiser. “You have about $1000 worth of torrented music we found through your internet provider. I know you must have really loved the new The National album, but c’mon, show them some love and pay for it like the rest of us.”

Killian can only gape, stopping in his tracks despite Emma’s nudging. “No one gets arrested for that.”

“Don’t you pay attention to those ads before movies? Punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison?”

Emma has to resist the urge to take out her phone and snap a picture of his face. She settles for loading him in the back of the car.

“I cannot believe I’m being bloody arrested for torrenting music. Of all things to get arrested for.” he spits the words out as if he’s spitting out tacks, and Emma can only look a little gilb. “How many people download music, love? And you’re coming after me.”

“You ever been fishing, Jones?”

“I have a boat, love.” Killian scoffs, then seems to switch to another tactic, “Perhaps we can forget all this and I can take you out on it sometime…”

Emma ignores him entirely, walking around to the other side of the car to get in once he’s secured in the back. “You ever catch every fish in the sea when you fish?”

“That’s impossible, but of course you know that or else the metap-”

“We catch the people we can, Jones. It is a little hard to catch them all, you know.”

“It works out a little conveniently for you, doesn’t it?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Jones.”

Killian only laments more, “You couldn’t even make it something glamorous, like money laundering or tax exemption…”

“Have you done either of those things?” she asks, tapping her fingers on the steering wheel with a little bit too much self-satisfaction.

“No.” he replies shortly, “Though if I had, I’d hardly tell you.”

“Not exactly building your case, pirate.”

\--

“So,” Emma starts, her hands folded on the table.

“So.” Killian mimics, looking incredibly bored with his surroundings. There’s not much to look at in the room. Just a table, a few chairs, a grey wall, and your standard one way mirror that she’s sure David, Marian, and Lance are watching the interview anxiously through. She’s lucky she convinced them that she needed to do this one-on-one, really. “What do you want? Keep in mind I’m being incredibly kind in not requesting a lawyer for this little chat so you would be wise to speak quickly, love.”

“As we’ve just gone through, you have charges pending against you for five counts of piracy, including but not limited to: a The National album, the first season of Game of Thrones, the entire discography of Coldpl-”

“There’s really no need to go through the entire list.” he says quickly, and if she isn’t wrong the tips of his ears look a little pink as he scratches the back of his ear.

“It’s a pirate’s life for you, huh?” Emma asks rhetorically, having way too much fun teasing him.

“Evidently.”

“And it seems you have a pirate’s luck. We’re prepared to offer you a deal to drop these charges.”

“Out of the kindness of your hearts, I’m sure.”

Emma can only smile along, “Exactly.”

“I hope you realize that all you had to do was show up without Sherriff Stick Up His Arse, right?”

“Maybe I just like watching you squirm.”

“The feeling is mutual, though likely in a different way.”

Emma gives him a sour expression, not at all impressed with his attempt at innuendo.

“Apologies if I’ve made you uncomfortable, lass.” he says, and it oddly enough sounds sincere.

“Who is your source?” she asks instead of acknowledging him.

“Will you and your friends behind the mirror let me go if I tell you?”

“Yep.” she replies simply.

“That shouldn’t be too hard, then. I know him quite well.”

Of course he does. “Enough with the games, Jones. Who is it?”

Killian inhales dramatically, and answers, “Me.”

Emma really loves to see her hunches proved right.

“You’re your own source?”

“Aye.” he admits, without much tension. “It’s me. Let’s just say I’ve done things I’m not proud of, Swan.”

“Things like....”

“I plea the fifth, but I assure you it was long before that organization got as despicable as it is now.”  
"Why are you doing this?" Emma's brow furrows as she contemplates her own question. “Why now? Why did you back out the last time?”

“Let’s just say it’s better to not have the Portland police involved.”

“Why?” she’s likely going to get sick of saying this by the end of this questioning session.

“Rumplestiltskin has his ways of getting away with what he does, usually through monetary exchanges.”

“You’re accusing Portland police of massive corruption.” Emma tells him, skeptic. “You know, I’m really good at telling when someone is lying to me.”

Killian sighs, “I’m well aware. And you can tell I’m not lying.”

He’s right, she can.

“How do you know that?” she challenges instead.

“Because you’re still talking at this point. Just as I am about to as I’ve upheld more than my part of the deal.”

Emma decides to cut to the chase at this point. “Rumplestiltskin cut off your hand.”

Jones nearly gapes at her.

“That’s quite an assumption to make.”

“So is that the police are letting a murderer run free in exchange for payment. I should know what happened, I found it next to a dead body.”

Killian goes very still at that. The only indication of movement he gives is his jaw clenching while he slightly twitches his left arm and his chest rising and falling with his rapid breathing. Emma has known him for less than 48 hours, but she gets the feeling that this isn’t very common for him to be speechless.

“I could ask you for a DNA test to confirm it, but-”

“You were right. It’s mine.” He admits.

Emma doesn’t miss a beat. “And the woman?”

Killian freezes up again for a millisecond, but then goes back to

“C’mon, Jones. I know Rumplestiltskin took more from you than just your hand.”

Emma sighs, his clear irritation rubbing off on her. She winds both of her hands into her hair at the scalp, exhales, and tells him in the lowest and calmest voice she can manage, “We’re trying to get justice for a lot of people here. Including you and the woman you must have cared about.”

It doesn’t seem to be enough for Killian Jones.  He rocks back on his heels, staring up at the ceiling as a signal that he’s getting impatient. “Stop checking your eyeliner in the two way mirror and listen to me.”

He sneers at her like a injured dog backed up in the corner, “I backed out because I knew this was a mistake. I wanted revenge and I got desperate enough to seek it through means that are clearly a waste of both of our time, Swan, so if you would please show me out.”

“Hey, wait-”

“I was under the impression that the charges were dropped.”

“They were.”

“So I’m free to go?”

Emma is terrible at giving up.

“Swan?” he asks again, clearly becoming more impatient as he toys with the cuffs on his wrists.

“I’m going to tell you something and I want you to listen really closely.” she tells him, a shadow of anger in her voice. “Revenge and justice aren’t always the same thing. If you wanted revenge, you would have tried to kill him yourself by now.”

“Who says I haven’t?”

“Just listen to me.” Emma nearly snaps, and he lifts up his cuffed hands as if to pacify her. “If you didn’t want justice, you wouldn’t be here. I understand because I’ve…” she almost says been there, but decides she doesn’t want to reveal that much. “I want to help you. I want to help the woman whose heart was ripped out at the docks by some psychopath but _I can’t do that_ if you don’t let me. You can do what you can do best, and be alone, or we can work together and try to stop him before he hurts anyone else.”

Killian contemplates this, seemingly at war with himself still. “Quite passionate, Swan. I think you’ve proved your competence.”

“I want the name of Rumplestiltskin. I know you know it.”

Killian hesitates, “I fear you wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“Let me guess, the deep pockets in the Portland police department excuse again? Just tell me the name.”

“You may only be putting yourself in danger with it, love. This is bigger than just you and I.”

“I’m a police officer. What I do with myself is my concern. Let me do my goddamn job, Jones.”

Killian, through some miracle and act of God, gives in.

“Robert Gold.”

“The pawnshop owner?” she asks in complete disbelief. “Jones…”

“Yes, though I’d supposed you’d say former pawnshop owner.”

She remembers the tip, then. _“All the Gold...”_ Gold was capitalized as if it were a name.

It still doesn’t make any sense.

“There’s one major flaw in that…” she begins cautiously, unsure of how to really approach this situation. Of course it’s not as simple as just a name. _Of fucking course._

“I’m well aware.”

“Robert Gold has been dead for a year.”

“Now you see my dilemma, Emma.” Killian Jones offers, a bitter smirk on his lips.

Emma gets the feeling that this is really going to bite her in the ass.

 ****  
  



	2. called me back to the start

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I updated this pretty quickly for me, damn! I honestly fall in love with this verse the more I write it, so it’s so much fun to write. I'm so excited about the dynamic Emma, Killian, David, Lance(lot), Marian, and Mulan have and I hope you guys are too! I doubt updates will keep on being this fast, though, so keep that in mind. I’m usually a terrible procrastinator, but I think it helps to have bits and pieces of the future chapters already written to ~~~motivate me to continue. That, and awesome feedback which I can not say thank you enough for.   
>  Warnings for this chapter: some descriptions of violence (though a lot less so than last chapter), murder, death, hospitals, poisoning, references to sexism, and a slight reference to racism. There’s one flashback that may be triggering especially on the death front, but it doesn’t include graphic violence or anything like that.   
>  Cool? Cool. Hope you guys enjoy this chapter, and I really can’t say thank you enough for the feedback I’ve gotten so far. :D

 

Emma didn’t know what to expect when she arrested Killian Jones. He’d already proven himself to be a royal pain in the ass. His “tip” seemed to have created more problems than it solved and presented more questions than it answered. It seemed unquestionable that he knew _something_ , though. And with the investigation in the condition that it’s in now, it was safe to say the force needed to take whatever it could get.

She did not expect him to insist for her to chase her tail and go after a dead man.

The man in question now had his head bent, idly toying with the handcuffs around his wrists, prosthetic in place this time, as if pondering the ways he could get out of them. The jangling of the cuffs was the only sound in the room and had been for the past five minutes after his apparent confession, besides Emma restlessly bouncing her foot in thought. She can’t help but absentmindedly study him - the curve of his jaw, the focus of his gaze down, the tendons in his back that she can just make out when his head is bent, and...the now trademarked smirk that is slowly growing on his face.

“See something you like, Swan?”

_Here we go._

“That’s it.” Emma sits up, hands on the table as she towers over him. “We’re done here.”

“Excuse me?” “I’ve just given you everything you wanted.”

“You gave me the name of a dead man.” Emma shoots back, pacing up and down the length of the small room.

He groans, “You keep saying that.”

“Because it’s true!” she protests.

“Well, there’s no harm in making sure is there now?”

“All you’ve been doing is playing games with us.”

Killian’s patience is quickly dwindling, and hers has been gone for most of the duration of this questioning period. “You heard me, darling, whether you choose to believe me is your own decision.”

“Believe the guy who hasn’t given me a single straight answer?”

“This is a direct answer to your inquiry, love. Either you can follow this lead,” Killian sighs, “and your gut, because I know it’s telling you I’m being honest with you.”

“Is it?” she asks in exasperation, throwing her hands in the air.

“Yes.” Killian answers without hesitation. “ _Emma_ , you asked me just now to listen to you in your pursuit for justice. If you truly want to stop this man as much as I do, we have to work together. Try something new, darling. It’s called trust.”

She swears she’s going to throw this guy out. Or throw him in jail. Both seemed like feasible options. Killian Jones is looking at her with so much goddamn sincerity that she wants to tear her hair out. She is not going to start looking for a dead man whose grave she passed by on the way to visit - whatever, she is not going to start going on the hunt for a man that’s six feet under because a rogue criminal has lost his goddamn mind. Emma is not going to listen to his delusional ramblings. No matter how much she wants to find Rumplestiltskin, she isn’t going to. She isn’t.

Denial is a hell of a thing. She can tell from the cocky expression on Jones’ face that he knows it too.

Really, what was the harm in just investigating? Discreetly, of course. This is the one lead they’ve gotten in ages and she can’t let anyone else get killed on her watch. She wouldn’t be able to live with herself. Honestly, she has to do this. It’s her duty as a police officer, as a decent human being.

Fuck it.

“David is going to be so pissed.” is all she says before marching out of the room.

Emma doesn’t have to look back to tell he has an obnoxious, victorious smile on his face.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Long story short, Emma ends up digging into the file of one Robert Gold (rather that than his grave) with Marian on one side of her and an irksome pirate on another. David said he needed to ‘take a walk’ after she came out of the interrogation room to their befuddled, concerned, and irritated expressions (respectively) and Lance had gone to call Mulan to inform her of the updates in the case.

“Well, he only had one family member, his wife,” Marian notes, frowning at the page in front of her. “Milah Gold apparently disappeared a few years before his death.a year ago.”

Killian visibly stiffens at the name and rubs at a spot on his right sleeve with his prosthetic. Emma knows that look. She wears it any time she passes by bear claws at a bakery or finds stuffed animals of wolves in Henry’s closet. Emma does the sleeve thing, too, except it’s fiddling with the shoelaces at her wrist instead of whatever reminder he’s wearing.

“You knew Milah.” she says, a statement and not a question.

“The woman with her heart ripped out.” he replies in a low tone with a bitter grimace, “the one I believe you told me you wanted justice for.”

“She went missing years before then.” Emma states, confused. “We weren’t even able to I.D. her, but it seems like an odd time to do it.”

“Not if she was with me when she was missing.” he replies, voice more curt than usual, “Let’s just say Gold wasn’t pleased that his wife left him for another man when we came back to Storybrooke.”

“Oh,” Emma can tell it must still be an open wound, so she decides not to pick at it. Not right now, anyway. “ _Okay._ ”

Marian looks between the two of them as if she’s trying to solve a puzzle with a thousand pieces. When Emma meets her gaze with an indignant expression, she gets a knowing one from Marian she doesn’t know what to do with.

It’s Killian who speaks next, “And I bet that file will tell you that Gold died months before. A gas leak in his home that led to a fire and a charred body that was also left unrecognizable. Just as he planned.”

“Why would he fake his own death?” Marian asks.

“Why would you suspect a dead man of murders that began weeks after he died?” Killian challenges, quirking an eyebrow up. “That’s precisely the point.”

“No other family?” Emma questions, peering over Marian’s shoulder. “Mom? Dad? Siblings?”

Marian just shakes her head, “He didn’t have any siblings, his mother died when he was young, and his dad, Malcolm Gold, died serving a life sentence for...damn, her murder.”

Emma’s spine straightens in alarm. “His dad murdered his mother?”

“Like father, like son.” Killian mutters sourly. “I didn’t know that, but I can’t say I’m surprised. Gold has always been a misogynist.”

Marian grimaces, “I remember. Back when he was apparently alive and owned the pawnshop, I went in there once to look at some mobiles for Roland. He was such an asshole to some poor girl who had the misfortune of working for him. There were a few comments about women needing to clean and, safe to say, I didn’t do business there again.”

“Aye, Belle French.” Killian nods. Marian and Emma give him quizzical looks and he grins sheepishly. “She’s a nice lass, works at the library now.”

“She know anything?” Emma questions, thinking of all she could have overheard working for Gold.

“Belle tried to tip us off that Gold was alive when…” Killian swallows back the thought, “you get the point. It didn’t do much good, anyway. I’ve talked to her and she doesn’t seem to know much else.”

Marian considers this, crossing her legs and leaning forward, “Think she’d talk to us?”

“I’d reckon so.”

Lance walks into the room, with his phone in hand and a frustrated expression on his face,  “I just talked to Mulan. She says this really should be in Portland’s hands, not ours.”

Killian vehemently shakes his head, “As I told you, Swan. The lot’s not to be trusted. Gold and Mills have a mutually beneficial arrangement that spans decades.”

“You believe him?” Lance defers to Emma instead of replying to Killian.

“I’m convinced I’ve lost my mind in doing so, but…” Emma’s expression hardens and she bites her lip in concentration, “I’ve always thought Regina was capable of more than people assume. And not in a good way.”

“What if they demand they have jurisdiction?” Marian asks, “I don’t trust Regina and her people any more than Emma does, but they do have a bigger force than we do and most of the murders have happened there.”

“Of course they have, as it’s much less of an inconvenience to get away with it there with a few paychecks. Also, easier to stay hidden from prying eyes.” Killian adds gravely, leaning back in his chair.

Emma groans, feeling less than secure about Killian’s decision to put the force’s noses where he wants them to put them. “I still don’t know how I feel about operating just off of your word. These are a lot of accusations to make without proof.”

“What else do you have, darling?”

“I hate to admit it, but he’s right.” David mutters, apparently leaning on a wall behind Emma during some of the duration of the conversation. He gives Emma a sheepish look for sneaking up on her. “What else do we have?”

“It’s nice to see we can get along, mate.” Killian tells him with a wide grin as he stands up from his chair, giving him a pat on the back for effect.

“Please don’t ever touch me.”

“He’s quite welcoming, too.” Killian adds glibly.

Lance looks amused, “As nice as these exchanges are, it’s best that we continue this tomorrow. Mulan isn’t here, and I know she would want to be when we get this going. David has a newborn to get home to, Marian has to pick up Roland from daycare, Emma has to pick up Henry, and if I come home late one more time I’m fairly sure I’m going to be strangled.”

Killian’s interest seems piqued, “You have a son, Swan?”

Good. Maybe that’ll scare him off. “Not really any of your business, but yes.”

“The lad is lucky to have such a good mother.” Killian looks up at her with all the sincerity he can evidently muster. She narrows her eyes. He doesn’t so much as flinch.

_Dammit._

David seems to echo her sentiment, “You can harass us tomorrow, Jones. It’s been a long day.”

“Aye,” Killian nods with a twinkle in his eye, “and then tomorrow I’ll take some of you lot to my place.”

All four of the cops seem to give him a dirty look in unison. Emma replies with a scandalized, _“What?”_

Killian snickers, “Why, I meant so you could see the bits and pieces of information I’ve gathered. What were you all thinking?”

Emma glares. Marian huffs. Lance snorts. David looks as if he’s ready to punch him.

“I guess I’ll see you all tomorrow,” Marian states. She, David, and Lance head for the door.

Emma hangs back, putting a hand on Killian’s arm when he makes an attempt to follow the other three. Killian, of course, is delighted by this. “Is this your way of asking me back to your place later on, Swan? And not in the manner I suggested?”

“Nice try. Just making sure you’re not fleeing by morning. Before you go,” Emma says, leaning towards him in an attempt at intimidation, “keep in mind I’m not taking my eyes off of you for a second.”

It seems to have the opposite effect.

Killian licks his lips like the cat who got the cream, leaning even closer towards her so that she can feel his breath on her ear when he whispers, “I would despair if you did. And I don’t know what kind of man I’d be to leave you waiting in the morning, darling.”

He’s out the door before she has a chance to reply.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“Hey, kiddo,” she greets, a wide grin on her face as her son gets into her tiny yellow Bug. No matter how ugly her job got, her son always made the day better. “How was school?”

“Aunt Mary Mar-, I mean, Mrs. Blanchard showed us this...hang on a second” Henry’s eyes narrow, apparently noting how fidgety his mother is. “You tell me how work went first.”

“Since when is that required?” Emma asks indignantly, “I can’t ask how my favorite son’s day went?”

“Your only son. And you should stop stealing jokes from Uncle David, he uses the same one.”

Emma scrunches her face in mock confusion, “He calls you his son?”

“Nephew, duh.”

“Smart alek.”

“I think I get it from you.”

“So it’s my fault?”

“Yup. Just like you avoiding my question about work.”

Emma sighs. The kid is too damn perceptive for his own good and she has no one to blame but herself for that either. That doesn’t mean she wants him exposed to stories about serial killers, though. “We might have a clue for catching a very bad man.”

There. That was an appropriate answer for an eleven year old, right? He’d tried to wrangle out details from her before, but she’d always just gone with the “very bad” descriptor rather than “responsible for the ugliest crimes and murders she’d ever seen”. She wasn’t the type of mom who believed in sheltering her kids, but if a subject was too much for her sometimes it sure as hell wouldn’t be something she’d expose Henry to. Sue her. She didn’t want to give her kid nightmares.

“Why are you all antsy, then?”

“Emphasis on the ‘might’.”

“Oh.” Henry says, nodding as if he has deep understanding on the subject. “You’ll catch him. You always do.”

At least her son had faith in her, which is more than she had in herself at the moment. A dead man, for Christ’s sake…her hands grip a little tighter on the steering wheel.

“You might have to spend more time at Anna and Kris’s place, though. I hate working late, but this may mean I have to.”

“That’s okay.” Henry tells her, with all the conviction of an eleven year old, “Bad guys don’t catch themselves. Plus, they’re going to have a kid too soon so they’re probably going to need the experience _and_ I really like their dog.”

“The one you stuck plastic reindeer antlers on when you were younger?”

Henry looks cheery at the memory, “Sven’s the best.”

He’s another reason she’s so cautious about this case. As much as she - single mom or not - wants to recklessly barrel headfirst into danger (and would if not for David forcibly holding her back sometimes), the last thing she wants is something to happen to her and leave Henry like she was. Even though unlike her (at least, until David, Ruth, and Mary Margaret), he has a host of people who loved him and would be willing and able to take care of him should something happen to her - it would crush him if she got tangled in a job gone wrong. She worries that her own desire to catch the Straw Agency, dead members or not, might cloud her judgment and get her into situations she can’t get out of.

Then, she thinks about the father of the man who was beaten to death with a cane and had a calling card five feet from his body. It was hard to watch when they called him into the morgue to identify his son, to say the least. _“Not August,”_ he’d sobbed, over and over again, but Emma blinked and she’d heard _“Not Henry”_ in her head and seen Henry’s small body on the cold slab instead of the man’s.

Emma had to walk out of the room before she collapsed.

As much as she hates the idea of leaving Henry, the thought of something happening to him is completely unimaginable. Which is why she’s currently engaged in, for all intents and purposes, a wild goose chase involving a 21st century pirate and a dead man.

Fantastic.

“Now, tell me about your day.” Emma tells him, shaking out of her reverie.

 

\--

 

The next morning, Lance and Emma show up on Killian’s doorstep. She has to hand it to him, the isolated location - literally in the middle of the woods - made more sense now. Emma guesses it has something to do with not wanting Gold to finish the job he did with Killian’s hand.

She knocks on the door, Lance right behind her with a demeanor that says he has no idea what to expect.

Killian answers the door with a grin. “A man could get used to finding you at the other side of his door, Swan.”

“Save it, Casanova.” Lance counters, ducking his head under the doorway as Killian’s face falls. “I’m here too.”

Emma cuts Killian off before he can inevitably reply. She does not need to relive the David and Killian exchange from the first time. “Why the middle of the woods, Jones?”

“Harder to find.”

“We found you.” Emma replies, eyes narrowed. “Who says Gold can’t?”

Killian seems completely unconcerned. “You found me because I let you. Don’t worry yourself, love. Gold would have a difficult time finding us here, I made sure of that.”

“Yes, because I’m so worried about a man coming out of his grave to find us. Makes sense.”

“If you keep on insisting he’s dead that’s hardly helpful to your investigation, is it?” Killian retorts, clearly tired of her insisting otherwise. “What did I say about trust, love?”

“When did I ever say I trusted you?”

Jones almost seems offended at her reply, “It was implied!”

“If you say so.”

“Anyway,” Lance cuts in and Emma almost blushes. She was trying to avoid Lance and Killian getting distracted by bickering, and yet here she was. “Show us what you got, Jones.”

Killian looks as if he’s holding back innuendos by force of will.

“Follow me.” is his, for once, brief reply as he leads them into a small room. It looks like a small office, or at least a makeshift one. There’s a small desk, a laptop, and - the focal point of the room - a large board on the wall.

The board looks mismatched and cluttered - newspaper clippings, maps, photos and sticky notes - but _A Beautiful Mind_ channeling aside it seems to work. He must be a visual person, she thinks idly. Photos of Gold leaving a warehouse, labeled to be in Portland, are a recurring theme. Some are dated years ago and there’s one that’s as recent as two weeks ago.

Emma frowns, much more inclined to believe Gold is really alive now.

“Behold,” he announces, “the information I’ve collected over the years on the Crocodile.”

“Crocodile?” Lance repeats skeptically. “Gold, Rumplestiltskin, Crocodile...where are you getting these names from?”

“Reading is one of the most important skills in life to learn, Detective Elliot.” Killian fires back snarkily, pointing to a section on the board dedicated to the names of people in the Straw Agency attached to their assorted nicknames with a ring adorned finger. Emma has to say, she’s impressed.

“This is….a lot to take in.”

“Aye. It took some time.”

“One has to wonder what took you so long to come forward with all of this.” Lance says carefully, seeming skeptic of it all.

“Haven’t I mentioned my distrust for the police?”

“Says the white man.” Lance rolls his eyes, “Give me a break.”

Killian pauses, “Fair enough. And as I said, you proved your worth, Swan.”

Emma exhales, tucking her hands into the pockets of her jeans. “Consider us Not Like the Other Cops, I guess.”

She scans the page that Killian just pointed to, with the nicknames - in elegant cursive print - pinned to it. She has to say, she’ll give Rumplestitlskin, Gold, whoever he was points for creativity. Robert Gold is listed as Rumplestiltskin/The Crocodile. Cora Mills is the Queen of Hearts. Regina Mills is the Evil Queen. Albert Spencer is King George. Zelena Mills is the Wicked Witch of the West. Sidney Glass is the Magic Mirror. Melissa Sente is Maleficent. Cynthia DuPree is Cruella De Vil. And Killian Jones is…

“Captain Hook.” Killian reads for her once her finger stops at his name, voice disconnected and cold in her ear. “That was before he chopped off my hand, mind you. I now appreciate how fitting it is.”

“That’s why he’s the Crocodile?” Lance realizes. “Now I get it.”

“I saw the Millses. Three of them.” Emma tells them, feeling a little disturbed and remembering bits and pieces of scenes in a hospital. “He didn’t just pay them off, did he?”

“Well, that’s part of it. They just enjoy committing their share of sins as well.” Killian admits, “Regina especially has been responsible for her share of poisonings.”

Lance looks over at the page, raising a disbelieving eyebrow,“Why the fairytale names? That’s pretty weird for a group of criminals, isn’t it?”

_Poisonings..._

“Gold is a strange man.”

_That had to mean…_

“You’re on the list, aren’t you?”

Emma can feel her throat closing up and drying out, rendering her unable to say another word if she wanted to.

“Aye, as I just bloody explained. I told Swan then that I’d worked with them in the past before they had descended into murder and chaos, didn’t I Emma?”

She misses his question entirely, too engrossed in her own thoughts.

“Emma?” he repeats, resting a hand on her arm and looking into her eyes with a troubled expression, “You alright?”

Emma blinks, switching back into the present. She’s befuddled by the carefulness in his gaze. “I’m fine, just thinking. What’d you ask?”

“Doesn’t matter, I heard you in the interrogation room, Jones.” Lance quickly answers. “You need a glass of water or something, Emma?”

Emma shakes her head vehemently, crossing her arms over her body and nearly snaps. “Like I said, I’m fine.”

Lance looks a little offended by her tone, and she immediately feels guilty. He’s been one of her oldest friends, he doesn’t deserve her biting his head off.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to... I just didn’t get a lot of sleep.” she says remorsefully. “Sorry.”

Killian’s brow furrows more and more, and she doesn’t really have the time to deal with _that_ , either.

“It okay if I go outside for a minute? I think I just need some fresh air.” Emma asks, mind still clouded by what she just figured out.

“Of course, love.” Killian says quickly, too gently, “if you know anything, just let me know.”

She nods, and ducks out the front door to sit on the porch. This place doesn’t feel nearly as sketchy, now, despite being in the middle of fucking nowhere. It’s almost quaint. Emma breathes in the scent of wood and evergreen and rests her head on her knees to think.

It reminds her of an apartment she had back in Portland, the complex was surrounded by trees and Henry thought it was the coolest thing in the world because - according to his logic at that age - forests had wolves and wolves were the coolest animal.

Emma used to work in Portland. Mary Margaret and David were in Storybrooke, which wasn’t far away even though they pleaded with her to stay with them in the town so they could make sure she and Henry were taken care of. She just wanted to live in a bigger city because she hated small towns and how everyone knew everyone’s business. Emma thought it would be ironic if she went from becoming a criminal to a cop, so she did it. She met Elsa and Anna in Portland, who worked in a cute little ice cream shop with their aunt, Ingrid, and insisted on watching Henry while she went through training.

She loved Portland. She hated her boss, sure, because Regina was a piece of work who cared more about arrest rates than actual community building and hated her with a fiery passion, but otherwise it was bliss. She had friends there. She had Henry. She had a job she loved. She had Graham.

Graham with a shy grin on his face and a bear claw in the other. Graham laying on the floor of the station and not moving. Graham playing with her hair as he whispers terrible, horrifically corny jokes in her ear. Graham not waking up. Graham passionately exuding his love for the wolf rescue foundation he used to work for until he found it didn’t really pay the bills. Graham not breathing.  Graham telling a story to seven year old Henry about the huntsman who fell in love with a princess. Graham not responding no matter how many times she begs him through her sobs to please, _please_ , just talk to her and please _,_ _please_ , just tell her he’s okay and he’s alive and he’s here with her. Graham smiling at her before he kissed her, as if she was the whole world and he was just lucky enough to have her in his hands. Graham’s body being blocked by the nurses and if she just tells them that he’s hers and she just wants to know he’s okay and he’s alive and he’s here with her.

They ruled it a heart attack. He was barely 30. She begged them for a tox screen, begged Regina to understand that something wasn’t right and healthy men just don’t get heart attacks out of the blue. She did a lot of begging last night, and not once did any man, woman, or God listen to her.

Emma feels sometimes like she never left that hospital. She still hears the ringing of the alarms in her ears and the fierce denial of Regina that anything had been amiss. She still smells that god awful hospital scent of sterilization and cheap cleaner and still feels the impressions the chair in the waiting room left on her legs. She still sees him, when they finally let her in, lying cold and still on a hospital bed before they transferred him to the morgue.

She got the hell out of there the next week. She told herself she wouldn’t look back, but she does every time she looks at the shoelaces on her wrists.

Regina poisoned him.

She didn’t leave a calling card. She didn’t have to. Her remorseless eyes when she told Emma that it was time to stop chasing fantasies and realize that a heart attack was just a heart attack and it’s ridiculous to ask for a tox screen and what kind of question was that.

It’s stupid to think she’ll let it go now. They’d have to pry this case from her cold, dead hands.

Emma’s mind starts to clear and she can hear the two men in the other room, still going over the names and where to go from there.

“We should get ready to call these guys in, see if we can get any of them to squeal…”

“Are you mad? And tip them off that we know what’s going on? Mate, this thing is bigger than either of us. We have to be smart.”

“What are we supposed to do, then? Nothing? Just watch as they kill more people?”

“Jones is right,” Emma states briskly from the doorway, leaning against the frame. “As much as I hate to admit it. We don’t have any evidence to charge them with right now, going after them without our shit together will backfire.”

“I knew I liked you, Swan.” Killian tells her with a wide grin, “See what happens when you’re away?”

Emma ignores him. “We should lay low. Stake them out and get what we can out of them. Talk to that woman who worked in Gold’s shop Marian mentioned. All we have to go off of right now is your word, Jones, so you better be right.”

Lance tilts his head up to the heavens in exasperation. “You have a point. I just can’t believe you two are teaming up against me this early in the game.”

Emma frowns at that, but Killian just looks all the more pleased. “We do make quite the team, darling.”

“Shut up.” Emma groans. “Let’s head back to the station. I think Mulan should be there by now.”

“This is going to be fun.” Lance chuckles, immensely satisfied at the thought of it.

Killian glares at him indignantly, “What’s that meant to mean, mate?”

“She’s going to eat you for breakfast, mate.” Lance tells him, shoulder-checking him on his way out the front door. Emma has to laugh at how offended Killian is.

“Entertained?” Killian struts over to her like a peacock showing off his feathers. It’s a satisfying, and even more amusing, mental image.

“Very. And at your expense, which is a definite bonus.” Emma grins, cocking her head to the side.

Killian seems satisfied with the answer, if the soft smile on his face is any indication. “Glad to see you’re in higher spirits, Swan.”

The grin leaves her face at the reminder. “We should really get going.”

Killian stops her at the door, worry back on his face, “When you stepped out...is everything alright?”

That was a change in mood. Cocky and flirtatious to concerned and cautious? Emma scoffs and wonders what the hell his problem is, “This is the second time you’ve asked this. What are we, buddies now?” What business did he even have with his faux worry, anyway? They barely knew each other. They were forced to work together by shitty circumstances. They definitely weren’t friends.

“Like I said, open book.” Killian replies softly, his expression a little too tender for her to be comfortable with. “What did Regina take from you?”

Who, not what. And how the hell did he know? “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“How about we agree not to lie to each other, hm?”

She could ask him if he knows anything about Graham. If he knows if Regina killed him. If he has anything, anything at all. She could look at the board again.

Instead, Emma tells him, “Let’s just go. Lance is going to send out a search party if we don’t get in the car with him now.”

He follows her wordlessly.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Sure enough, Lance is right. When they get back to the station Mulan is back.

“What happened when I was gone?” Mulan asks David indignantly, when Emma, Lance, and Killian enter the station. “I swear to God, I miss a few days to take care of Aurora and all fiery hell has broken loose here.”

“I called!” Lance says defensively, holding his hands up in mock surrender. “I did keep you updated.”

“I still should’ve been here.” Mulan states with all the fear-striking calm only she can present. “The Straw Agency? I should have been here. If I’m not you all will just start teaming up with criminals.”

Mulan looks pointedly at Killian.

“Killian Jones,” Killian introduces himself without missing a beat, holding his hand out for her to shake, “pleased to meet you, lass. I’ve heard nothing but good things.”

David is about to burst into tears from holding in the laughter. Marian elbows him in the ribs in an attempt to get him to cut it out.

Mulan looks as if he’s asked her to pet a rattlesnake. “Why are you still here? Elliot told me you sent in a tip, not taken up permanent residence in my station. Emma, are you responsible for this?”

Emma gapes, at loss for words. She feels like the kid who brought in the stray dog into the home and hid him in her bedroom without her parents knowing. “He’s kind of been helping us with the case.”

“Bit of a long story,” Killian laughs nervously, scratching behind his ear in what Emma now recognizes as a nervous tic. “I wouldn’t want to bore you with the details.”

“Well,” Mulan sighs, crossing her arms and sitting down behind her desk, “I’ve got time. Lance only gave me the cliff-notes.”

Lance gives her an apologetic shrug. “You said you wanted the conversation to be short so you didn’t wake up your wife.”

Mulan gives Lance a glare that silences him completely.

“I worked for them once, back when they were petty crimes. We parted ways years before they evidently started murdering people. When I came back to Maine, it’s safe to say Gold wasn’t happy to see me or his wife - I’m missing a hand and her heart was…” Killian trails off, shaken by the train of thought. “I want to see Gold pay for what he’s done.”

“And you think Gold is alive, I remember.”

“We did see the pictures.” Emma points between herself and Lance. “I wasn’t buying it before, but now I’m more inclined to believe him.”

“What pictures?” Mulan asks, lost.

“There’s a...board.” Lance attempts to explain, gesturing with his hands to indicate a box like shape. “There’s all of these names and pictures and…”

All this serves to do is confuse Mulan further.

Killian wipes his face with his hand in a gesture that strongly resembles a face-palm. “Point is, you need my help. You need my intel. You need my experience with this man.”

Emma resists the urge to ask _“Can we keep him?”_ and swears it’s purely because of all the things he just said instead of...whatever other motivation she could have. David seems excited at the prospect of getting rid of him and Mulan and Lance look concerned over what getting rid of him could mean for the case.

Mulan still seems unimpressed by the man in front of her. She looks over to Emma, “You think he’s telling the truth?”

“If I didn’t, his sorry ass would be in a jail cell right now.” Emma shrugs, doing her best to look noncommittal.

Mulan takes this into consideration, pausing in thought before coming to a decision.“You can stay.”

Emma does definitely not exhale in relief. By the looks of it, neither does anyone else (which means, everyone else - even David - did and all look equally ashamed of themselves for it).

Killian gives Mulan a jubilant smile, “Appreciate it, milady. I assure yo-”

“Don’t push it.” Mulan tells him, sharp and simple.

Killian shuts up, and the rest of them go back to their respective places in the station.

Marian is looking through addresses and phone numbers of the names on the list, seeing if any of them live in Storybrooke. Lance is thumbing through Gold’s file, making sure they’re not missing anything. David is finishing up paperwork for some petty crime he charged someone with this morning while getting ready to leave for the library.

Emma is studiously trying to ignore the large pest that seems to have taken up residence next to her desk while waiting for David.

“You have to admit, you’d be sorry to see me gone.” Killian tells her, studiously ignoring her attempt to ignore him.

“You’re a royal pain in my ass.” Emma shrugs, mouth twisted into a flippant expression, “But as much as I hate to admit it, you were right.”

Killian grins widely, pleased by the first statement he’s been able to coax out of her since she’s sat down. “Emma Swan will admit she needs Killian Jones, eh?”

Emma rolls her eyes, “The Storybrooke Police Department will admit they need Killian Jones’ intel, yes.”

“If you ever find any of your other...needs” he tells her breathily as he crouches closer to her, “need to be taken care of, you just let me know.”

“Is that the best you can come up with?” she deadpans, far from affected. “Seriously?”

 _God, does he ever stop smirking?_ “The offer is always open.”

Emma already regrets vouching for him. She resists the temptation to bang her head against the desk and instead resolves to continue to ignore him.


	3. the condensation is building tension

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! I think this might be a day later than the previous update was, but I have to say I'm happy with how frequently I've been able to update! I hope you guys are too. <3 
> 
> Just one main content warning for this chapter (and the entire fic, honestly) and that's death/murder. Hope you guys enjoy the chapter!

Killian is halfway into the passenger seat when the inevitable happens.

“Nuh uh.” David tells him with an arm resting on the open door to the driver’s side, beaming widely in self-satisfaction. “You get the backseat.”

Killian rolls his eyes in exasperation, reluctantly plopping down in the backseat. “Like the rest of the criminals, eh?”

“It’s good that you have self-awareness, Jones.” Emma replies, buckling her seat belt in from her spot on the passenger side. She’d be exasperated with the both of them for behaving like complete children another day. It wasn’t like she was one to talk at the moment, anyway. It’s too much fun to throw a barb at any easy target,  “At least some of the time, anyway.”

Killian’s irritation wears off fairly quickly, if his slightly bemused, “I am a pirate, remember?” is any indication.

Emma can only groan, arm resting on the door. “I’ve never met someone so proud to have been arrested for torrenting.”

 

* * *

 

The library is nice, in a cute sort of way. She had only been in there plenty of times before, helping Mary Margaret run errands when morning sickness kept her home (both her and David were really the _Let’s Rent Every Book on Parenting We Possibly Can_ sort of parents already as opposed to her trial and error efforts with Henry, who was the other reason she was dragged into the place). It’s obviously well-loved, if the painstakingly arranged book arrangements are any indication. A few college students are meandering around the place, but it’s otherwise fairly empty. Only one person appears to be working at the moment, a petite brunette she vaguely recognizes who is sitting with her nose buried in a novel. Emma has to tilt her head to make out the title on the spine. Pride and Prejudice. _Of course._

“Belle,” Killian says to the brunette, giving her a nod of greeting.

“Killian,” she greets kindly in return, until noticing the leather jacket and pinned badge clad detectives behind him. Her voice is a little higher pitched when she says, eyes flicking back and forth from Killian to Emma and David, “Officers.”  

Killian chuckles at her reaction,“They’re with me, I assure you. Not in the prepared to arrest me way, either.”

Belle releases an audible sigh of relief, “I told him it’d be best to talk to you guys first. I don’t understand why it took him so long.”

“Right now?” Killian retorts cheerfully, giving Emma a not-at-all-subtle look. “Neither do I.”

David already looks as if he’s ready to throttle him. And things were going so well for the 15 minutes it took to drive to the library. Not even a single (sincere) threat was said.

She guesses it was too much to hope for more from either of them.

“We were hoping we’d be able to ask you a few questions.” Emma tells her with a smile that she hopes both of them men get to mean _‘now is not the goddamn time’_. “In private, preferably.”

“Of course.” Belle says quickly, shutting her book and resting it by the laptop on her desk. “Anything I can do to help.”

Belle leads them into a back room of the library, that doesn’t have much else in it aside from a small table. “Is there anything I can get any of you?”  

“We’re fine, thank you.” David tells her politely as the four of them sit down, David is seated across from Belle while Killian and Emma are at her sides. “We heard you used to work for Gold?”

Belle answers quickly, “I did, yes.”

Killian had given her a quick run-down on what Belle knew to his knowledge, but Emma needed to hear it from Belle’s mouth. She could only rely on Killian’s word for so much (as little as possible, if Emma had it her way). Emma uses the softest tone she possibly can, “Can you tell me as much as you know about Robert Gold? As much as you’re prepared to tell us, we’re here to listen.”

Belle doesn’t seem surprised by the question, “Where would you like me to begin?”

“His death,” David answers, voice just as gentle as Emma’s was. He was good at that relaxing tone, much more than Emma was. God, David was going to be such a good dad. “Or his fake death, rather.”

“I overheard his conversations,” Belle frowns, “he talked to a woman named...Mellissa I think about arranging his funeral, which I thought was very odd at the time. I heard all kinds of odd things while working there, but that in particular stuck out to me. Then he started talking about how he was going to make them pay. I didn’t know who ‘they’ were at the time, but a few deranged rants from him about...I figured out it must have been about his ex-wife.”

Killian stiffens at her story, though it has to be familiar to him. All too familiar, Emma thinks sympathetically.

Belle takes in a deep breath. “I’d met Milah. I worked in that pawnshop for years - he threatened to repossess my father’s house if I didn’t, you know, he practically owned the town at the time - and when she was in Storybrooke it was definitely the easiest to tolerate. She was very kind to me whenever she was in the shop, unlike her husband. I couldn’t bear. if something had happened to her and I could’ve…and then it did anyway.”

“You did the best you could, Belle.” Killian replies, voice a little rough. “It’s not your fault.”

“Not yours either.” Belle points out. Killian only gives her a bitter smile. Belle shakes her head, then continues. “I walked into the pawn shop a few days later only to have a lawyer tell me that the shop was going to be sold as its owner had died. It was the news of the town, and I knew something was going to go terribly wrong.”

“What happened?” David asks cautiously, already knowing the answer. Belle’s eyes are beginning to water, so Emma quickly passes over a box of tissues from the back counter to her. Belle gives her a grateful smile and Emma can’t help but feel for the woman who shoulders so much undeserved guilt on her shoulders. Emma lets her hand stay behind when the woman takes the tissues and gives Belle’s hand a short, comforting squeeze.

“Milah appeared a few months later - with Killian -” Belle starts again, nodding in Killian’s direction. He only bows his head and lets it hang there in response. “and kept on insisting that Robert Gold couldn’t take this town and her freedom from her anymore. I tried to tell her that he wasn’t dead and that this was all to go after her, but I sounded absolutely mad. Milah told me that Gold had put the both of us in fear for too long and she wasn’t going to let either of us do so anymore.”

This was a lot more emotionally charged than anyone in the room was prepared for. Killian looks as if he wants to dig a hole through the floor for himself after reliving all that - Emma has to resist the urge to put her hand across the table and squeeze his like she did Belle’s. David looks almost near tears himself, though he’s doing his best to conceal it. Emma maybe sniffles and tries to make it look as if it’s her mascara irritating her instead.

Shaking it off, Emma turns to Belle again. “Did you hear anything about him after that?”

“No.” Belle shakes her head vehemently, maybe a little too much so. Emma narrows her eyes by a fraction, but decides to let it pass for now. There’s no point in pushing an emotionally distressed woman much further. “Once I quit I wanted to stay as far away from that...monster as possible.”

“I understand.” Emma replies simply. She understands that Belle is withholding something from them, she just isn’t sure what. Killian has been unusually taciturn for the past few minutes, but she lets that slide too.

Maybe David pushes it too much when he questions, “Would you be willing to testify to everything you just said in court?”

It’s as if someone had dumped a bucket of cold water on Belle. She immediately looks slightly panicked, as if she’s expecting Gold to knock down the front door and drag her out of it. Emma winces.

“Honestly, I just...don’t want to think about it anymore.” Belle admits, fidgeting in her chair and gnawing at her lip. “That chapter of my life is over, thankfully, and I’ve rather not relive it anymore than I already have. I hope you get what you need.”

Emma and David exchange deep frowns. Killian looks slightly disappointed, but otherwise unsurprised.

“Alright.” David tells her, perfectly calm and polite. “We hope we haven’t bothered you too much today, Miss French.”

“It needed to be said.” Belle says, with a bit of a teary smile. “I’m just...I’m sorry I can’t…”

“It’s okay,” Emma reassures her, and it is. Belle will come around on her own time, she’s sure. She’s just terribly curious about what all she’s leaving out and what makes her so afraid to testify - and something tells her it’s surprisingly not the obvious of hearing about her friend getting her heart ripped out. “We really appreciate all you’ve given us today.

Killian gives Belle a tight smile on his way out the door, “Take care of yourself, Lady Belle.”

David and Emma follow close behind, their moods a lot less jovial than they were when they entered.

“What happened, there?” Emma asks Killian in a near whisper on their way to the cruiser, quickening her pace to catch up to him. She was used to potential witnesses backing out, but _she knew_ there was something under the surface there. Killian had the best chance of knowing what it was, outside of Belle herself.  “If it were my boss who was such an asshole to me, I’d want to pin their ass to the wall.”

Killian simply says, “I’m afraid it’s not my story to tell.”

She shouldn’t be surprised by the answer.

 

* * *

 

“Well, now I feel a lot more certain about Jones telling the truth.” David announces when he walks in.

Killian groans, following close behind him. “David is a man of little faith.”

Lance rolls his eyes, still at his desk with his nose buried in the paperwork on his desk. Marian seems to ignore the both of them entirely, instead electing to quickly walk up and ask Emma, “How did it go?”

“We didn’t find out much more, but David is right.” Emma exhales, hands on her hips. “I do feel better knowing that we at least have someone to corroborate Jones’ story. She wasn’t lying either.”

“Did she agree to testify should it come to that?” Mulan asks, walking into the room.

“Which it will come to that.” Lance chimes in.

“No,” David says, mouth downturned. “she still seemed pretty shaken up by it all.”

“Oh,” Mulan matches his frown, looking a little disappointed. “Well, the question is where do we go from here.”

“Or where can we go.” Marian points out, crossing her arms. “I feel like there isn’t much we can do besides just stakeouts if we don’t want to risk these people being on the lookout for us.”

“We’re the police.” Lance comments as if the idea is ludicrous. “They’re always on the lookout for us.”

David pinches his nose in frustration. “There has to be something.”

“You know where the Straw Agency meets up, don’t you?” Emma questions Killian, furrowing her brows together in thought. “You had the pictures.”

“Aye. I do. And I believe I left the address with the lovely,” Killian motions to Mulan, who sends him an unimpressed glare in return. “Mrs. Fa. I believe you have it on record and I’d gladly serve as a guide there.”

“Starts with a ‘J’” David sighs, leaning against his desk “ends with ‘urisdiction’.”

Emma slams her hand on the desk with a frustrated scowl, “That’s right. Damn it.”

“We could approach Regina with the pictures of Gold.” Marian suggests, gesturing to the pile before them Killian - who is still frowning over David’s statement, “brought in. “That’s probable cause to get a warrant, right? A supposedly dead man in a warehouse?”

Emma shakes her head vehemently, “Like David said, jurisdiction. Do we want to tip Regina off that we know what’s going on? I don’t think that would end well for us.”

“Plus she could claim that they’re photoshopped or that the date-stamps are false.” Killian agrees, rubbing at his forehead. When Mulan gives him a look, he quickly adds, “Not that they are, of course.”

Mulan doesn’t seem entirely satisfied by the answer. She looks over to Emma, “He telling the truth?”

Emma has been waiting for him to lie, but no cigar yet. “Seems like it.”

“Well,” Marian sighs, “if we find what we need to in the warehouse and the Portland PD doesn’t come after them, we can go to the press with it.”

“We’re the police force of a tiny town.” Mulan points out mindfully, “They’re a - by many accounts - well-respected police department that’s a lot bigger than we are with a hell of a lot of connections. Additionally, that evidence would be immediately discounted if we got it illegally through barging into private property without a warrant.”

Killian clenches his jaw, clearly frustrated. “So, what? We wait around until someone else dies?”

Mulan groans, “Mr. Jones, I get where you’re coming from, but you need to understand we do not have the legal capacity to raid private property in another city.”

“We could notify Portland’s Internal Affairs?” David suggests, his right hand rubbing at his temple.

Killian starts to get a little pedantic, “Who is in charge of Internal Affairs over there, again?”

“Albert Spencer, why?” David replies, and it takes him a beat to catch on. “Oh. The same one that’s a member of the Straw Agency. Of course.”

Marian frowns, “So...we’re stuck.”

“Not stuck, per se.” David replies quickly, “just...we can’t do as much as we’d like to right now. It’s going to have to be stake outs and questionings from here on out.”

“Only one person on the list even lives in Storybrooke.” Emma protests, beginning to feel more than a little frustrated, “What good does that even do us?”

Lance’s reply is simple as he crosses his legs in his seat, elbow on his desk, and face in his palm. “We could question him. Sidney Glass, isn’t that his name?”

“I wouldn’t do that, mate.” Killian frowns, toying with the rings on his fingers. “All it would do is alert him of our knowledge and he’s quite good friends with one Regina Mills.”

Marian is rubbing at her forehead, “At least now we have a suspect and a starting point, which is more than we had when we began.”

Mulan sends her a skeptical look. “And no where else to go? What use is knowing who is doing it if we can’t even charge them?”

Emma bites her lip. Maybe Lance had a point earlier, despite her insistence that tipping Regina off would be disastrous. It wouldn’t be great, but it was their job to investigate. The Straw Agency would always be wary of the police. Police and murderers didn’t really get along (unless you were Regina), that was kind of the point. Gold and his croonies were likely already looking over their shoulders for the police. Besides, it’s not as if they were laying out such a trail of breadcrumbs, anyway. They had to do something - something not illegal - besides just waiting around.

And maybe Emma is getting sick of Killian Jones - who was currently trying to subtly shirk away from Mulan’s glare - being such a key contributor to the investigation by playing cop and leading them into dead ends. Maybe.  

“Lance is right. We should call in Sidney Glass for questioning. We don’t have any real alternatives at this point.”

Lance looks a little cheered by the recommendation and Killian looks slightly hurt.

“David, Marian, are you on board?” Mulan asks, looking over the two standing by Lance’s desk. They both nod. “Alright. We’ll get Sidney Glass in here tomorrow.”

 

* * *

 

Killian follows Emma as she’s about to go out the door. “Swan? Can we talk?”

“Nope.” Emma replies, not even slowing down her pace.

“Fine.” Killian tells her patiently, having no trouble with matching her walk. “I’ll talk. Can we please discuss the potential of just...getting the evidence we need.”

Emma stops in front of him for only a second, just to express her irritation, “And, let me guess, raid the warehouse for it? What happened to, _‘This thing is bigger than either of us. We need to be smart.’_ , Jones? Here’s us being smart.”

“I hope you’re prepared if other people get killed in the meantime, Swan.” Killian grits out. She knows he knows he’s being unfair and that just makes her all the more pissed off by his comment.

“On a suicide mission?” Emma retorts, crossing her arms and taking a step back from him. “Kind of defeats the purpose, don’t you think?”

He looks slightly regretful at causing her to take that step back (in more ways than one), but sticks to his argument. “It wouldn’t be a suicide mission if we came as a team, Swan. You have my word.”

“We?” Emma repeats, eyes bulging and heat rising in her as she grabs her bag and begins walking away from him - again. “You’re helping us with a case. You aren’t a cop, Jones.”

“I never said I was, but it doesn’t make us any less of a team. A bloody good one at that.”

Emma is finally bothered enough that she whips around to face him, “What do you want from me, Killian?”

Killian still pleads with her, stepping even closer to her, “Just listen to me, Emma. I promise, I-”

“I’ve had enough of men making promises in my life.” Emma regrets the words as soon as they’re out of her much. _Great._ Now he knows about her relationship-related issues, too.  

“You still don’t trust me.” Killian says, voice low and accent thick. It’s an observation, not a question. He doesn’t seem angry, just resigned.

“I…” Emma pauses.  “I can’t take the chance that I’m wrong about you.” she tells him finally, staring him dead in the eyes despite wanting nothing more than to study patterns in the floor.

Killian is, for possibly once in his life, at loss for words. His mouth slightly opens as if he’s about to reply with something - a rebuttal of some sort most likely - but decided against it. The only means of communication he has with her for that moment is searching her eyes as if he’s searching for clues of a puzzle - preparing to lay out what he knows about her on a board carefully arranged with maps and photos like he did the case.

Emma’s face pinches and she tucks a lock of hair behind her ear, succumbing to her desperate need to look at her boots instead of him.“You’re asking a lot for someone who you’ve known for a whole two days, Jones. Trust isn’t just given. It’s earned.”

“Well,” his mood seems to shift and he smiles, soft and easy. She can tell because she meets his eyes again, and quickly regrets it. Her reply, it seems, is something he can work with. “I hope that one day I can earn it.”

So here they are.

She can work with obnoxious and flirtatious Killian Jones, easy. All it takes is a cold shoulder and a few rolls of her eyes. They both seem to get their kicks off of teasing one another, though she’s not keen to admit that - especially so early in the game. It’s almost weird, the ease that comes with the banter.

Emma has no idea what the hell to do with sincere Killian Jones.

A beat passes. Emma doesn’t know what to say. Neither does Killian, for all of his incessant need to fill an empty room with words the words fail him for the second time in minutes. Instead, he does that stupid ear scratching thing without ever taking his eyes off of her and she has to leave before she does something stupid like tell him maybe one day she’ll let him. Let him earn her trust, anyway. Neither of them say anything. It’s not until Emma gets in her car that she lets herself even think it.

What a pair they make. Or don’t make. Or won’t make. Emma groans, head thumping against the headrest of her Bug. How fitting - the setting for the start of why she’s not to keen on trust in the first place.

Emma has - it feels like - always had a troubled relationship with relationships. Emma stole a stolen car at seventeen and fell in love with the thief in the backseat. They were happy for a few blissful months, scheming in the backseat and taking any moment they had with each other in borrowed hotel rooms. And if Emma had a troubled relationship with relationships, she had an even rockier one with what home meant. For those months, home was a tiny yellow Bug and whatever room they managed to snag in the morning. In the future, she hoped it would be Tallahasse - a clean start for dirty thieves that came at the simple price of moving some stolen watches.

Except for the fact that her future home wasn’t a beach in Florida. It was a barred cell at a minimum security prison. Emma wishes she didn’t remember the night that got her there in painstaking detail, from the cool metal of the cuffs on her wrists to the timbre of the officer’s voice that told her that her _boy took off_  (was he ever even hers?) and _he’s probably in Canada by now_. She gave birth to Henry - the one good thing (the best thing in her life) she got from that experience - in prison, shackled to the bed.

If Graham taught her what it was like to lose someone, Neal taught her what it was like for someone to not want to find her.

So, forgive her if she’s not in a rush to relive loving and losing any more in a lifetime that’s already afforded her quite enough of that. Falling head over heels only results in having a split head on the concrete. She knows the game now and she beats it by not playing at all.

 

* * *

 

Mary Margaret and Emma have a weekly tradition. Every Wednesday, they would - unfailingly - meet up for lunch and talk about whatever was going on in their lives. Mary Margaret insisted on it once Emma moved to Storybrooke, after Portland, and it’s always stuck. Emma would whine about people calling into the station to complain about those damn young teenagers, Mary Margaret would talk about how a fifth grader decided it would be an incredible idea to make paper airplanes from ripped pages of their history book, and it served as a therapeutic outing for both of them.

The only thing was sometimes Mary Margaret would not so subtly try to find out if Emma was seeing anyone. The answer had been a firm _‘absolutely not’_ since a failed attempt (after Neal and Graham and an assortment of reasons that she’s listed too many times) at romance a year ago with a furniture shop owner named Walsh, who apparently was married the entire time he was seeing her. That was enough for Emma to prove her theory of alone Emma equals happier Emma, but that didn’t stop Mary Margaret from endlessly prying. When that failed, she went on about how there was this new, young, studly (Emma’s interpretation of Mary Margaret’s words, not hers) teacher or this nice man she talked to for five minutes at Starbucks (he was a _doctor_ , Emma!).

Emma would, of course, do her best to change the subject and move on. It’s not as if Mary Margaret was trying to be mean. She really wasn’t. It just seemed almost in her nature to try to push Emma into one relationship or another because she was desperately wanted her to _'find love like her and David did'._ Thanks, but no thanks. She was just fine with just her and Henry. Emma just wasn’t a relationship kind of person, as she reasoned to herself the past year. She wasn’t even alone, she had an incredible group of friends, a supportive (if pushy) brother and sister, and the best son she could ask for.

She repeated this on a consistent basis to Mary Margaret and she’s let it go for the past few months. Emma thanked God for every conversation she had sans relationship talk - like the one she hoped she’d be having with Mary Margaret today.

Mary Margaret walked up to the regular table she and Emma had at some cute little cafe a little more than five minutes late, “Sorry, I’ve had parent/teacher conferences all week. Add that to being six months pregnant and I’m…”

“Frazzled?” Emma suggests, grinning at her friend. A whole five minutes late and she acted as if she’d disgraced Emma’s entire family line.

“Yeah. That’s a word for it.” Mary Margaret sighs, shrugging off her cardigan as she sits down across from Emma. Emma already ordered food for the both of them, seeing as they pretty much stuck to the same thing every week: garden salad and salmon for Mary Margaret and fries and a grilled cheese for Emma. “From the sound of things, you are too.”

“David told you about the case?” Emma asks, already knowing the answer. The two high school sweethearts couldn’t last five seconds without telling each other anything. It was actually kind of adorable, though she wouldn’t admit that to either of them, lest she encourage them to go too over the top, like that time they couldn’t even lock their door when she walked in bouncing Henry in her arms. She walked out with a hand covering Henry’s eyes and praying that one day she would get the image out of her brain.

“David told me about the case.” Mary Margaret says with a nod. Her knowing smile tells Emma she’s not going to like what comes out of her mouth next. “He also told me about _Killian_.”

Emma immediately seizes up, dreading the course of conversation. “Why are you saying his name like that?”

“Someone’s defensive.” Mary Margaret goads in that lilting tone of hers. Emma narrows her eyes with a bite into her sandwich.

“David hates him.” Emma points out, “Is he even worth mentioning if the love of your life, your sun and stars, etcetera looks as if he wishes he could dangle him out of a window?”

“Actually, that’s why I brought him up.”

“You brought him up in that tone of voice because your husband hates him?”

“I brought him up in that tone of voice because most of that hatred seems to stem from him being absolutely infatuated with you.”

“First of all,” Emma says, lifting her pointer finger defensively, “infatuated is a really strong word. He’s more infatuated with annoying the hell out of me. Second of all, I can’t stand him.”

“Then why didn’t you say you hated him first instead of David?”

“This is unbelievable.”

“You know, I couldn’t stand David when I first met him. He couldn’t stand me, either.”

“I know, you’ve told this story like a million times.”

“Then you know that, after being kicked out of my house by my step-mother, I tried to steal cash and accidentally stole Ruth’s wedding ring from your brother’s car and knocked him out when he caught me.”

“Yes.” Emma answers, clear and blunt. She’d give Mary Margaret this, though. Of all the romantic love at first sight stories she’d ever heard, this had to take the cake.

Mary Margaret only shrugs, hand holding her fork currently resting on her chin in thought. “I’m just saying. You say ‘criminal’ and ‘can’t stand him’ and I see when I met my husband.”

“I was sentenced to eleven months in prison when you guys met. I’m not really in a position to talk.”

“I know you think I’m overbearing sometimes,” Mary Margaret begins and Emma gives her a look that says Mary Margaret is severely understating it. “but...I know you Emma. I know you haven’t had the best of luck with love in the past.”

Emma snorts, another sign that Mary Margaret is competing for understatement of the year in her eyes.

Mary Margaret ignores her, “Emma, listen to me. That wall of yours...it might keep out pain, but it may also keep out love.”

Which is precisely the point, but it makes Emma almost uncomfortable (okay, more than almost) to have it spelled out for her by another person. Yeah, so she has walls. That’s how she survives without being sent to jail or cradling a dead body because of love.

“Can we just…” Emma huffs with her head tilted toward the ceiling, “talk about something else? Like our jobs maybe?”

“Alright,” Mary Margaret says plainly, “let’s talk about the case. I heard you got a little shaken up earlier today. Lance told David and...you know how that goes.”

Emma raises an eyebrow, “David tell you that too?”

“He is my husband and the father of my child.”

“It was... nothing.” Emma says, jamming an onion ring into her mouth to avoid replying. Mary Margaret means well, but God the confessional today is getting to be a little too much.

“It didn’t sound like nothing.”

Emma chews as long as she possibly can. Mary Margaret knew about Graham. She knew they dated and that he died and that he’s why she moved back to Storybrooke. She just didn’t know about her suspicions about Regina’s involvement. Which was for the best, considering she doesn’t even know if those suspicions are true. They’re just...gut feelings. Not exactly things that make excellent cases.

Emma decides not to tell her. Not like this, anyway. Not in a public place after Mary Margaret decided to get back on the _‘Let’s Find Emma a Love Interest’_ wagon. She’ll tell her a half truth, anyway. “It’s just...you remember how sick David and I felt when we found what the Straw Agency did on the docks. It just brought that back for me.”

Mary Margaret looks solemn, “That almost made me sick just hearing about it.”

“I know.” Emma replies, frowning. “Maybe you should tell me about your day. My recap for this week - not only do you know everything anyway - is apparently really depressing. Cheer me up.”

Mary Margaret almost looks as if she’s about to protest, likely to insist she wants to talk about Emma more and that this week couldn’t have been all depressing, but decides against it. “This might make you laugh. You know what some parent told me the other day?”

“What?”

“They asked me why I didn’t change my last name to my husband’s, because I didn’t seem like the type to keep my maiden name.”

Emma grimaces, leaning back in her chair. “Seriously?”

“Seriously.” Mary Margaret scowls, jabbing her salad with a little more force than was necessary. “I swear it’s because I’m pregnant and have more hormones than I know what to do with that I went on a rant to her about the importance of setting an example for her eleven year old daughter that a woman’s identity should not be reliant on her husband, with no disrespect to women who do choose to change their last names, but all women shouldn’t have to and…”

She trails off when Emma doesn’t stop beaming at her, an almost adoring look on her face. This was why she loved her sister-in-law, at least more so than when she had to sit through interrogations by her that would make even Lance - interrogator extraordinaire - jealous.

Mary Margaret, bewildered by her reaction, asks, “What?”

Emma simply tells her, “I’m just so glad you’re my sister-in-law.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! I hope you liked the chapter and I cannot emphasize how much I appreciate feedback.


	4. 4: a stubborn silence is formed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Hey! Sorry for the long wait on this chapter, especially since the first few were so rapid. I guess this is my inspiration’s way of saying update weekly instead of every three days or else it’ll get maxed out/super busy for two weeks? Again, sorry! 
> 
> This story is at over 20,000 words now and that is so wild to me. That’s novella length! If I double that, it becomes novel length. INSANITY. 
> 
> I really hope you guys enjoy this chapter. It’s very Emma and Killian centric, this time. I really love incorporating Emma’s relationships with the other characters as much as possible, but goddamn they really demanded the focus this chapter. I don’t think you guys will mind, though. I really appreciate the feedback I’ve gotten on this fic so far. I also /cannot/ thank Amber (sentbyfools) enough for betaing this for me.
> 
> Typical murder/death warnings. Yikes at me using “typical” and “murder/death” in the same sentence.

  
  


They get Sidney Glass, apparently also known as the Magic Mirror, in the next day.

“Does the name Robert Gold sound familiar to you?” Lance questions in his most intimidating voice. It’s always proven to be the most effective when it comes to getting perps to squeal, anyway.

“The pawnshop owner?” Sidney asks in turn, painting on an expression of confusion and surprise. He’d been easy enough to ask in for questioning, but as it turns out not as easy to get to actually answer said questions. “Didn’t he...die a few years ago? I don’t understand the question.”

“He is so full of shit.” Emma groans in irritation, thumping her head against the glass and wishing she was pounding her fist against a Glass instead.

 _“I don’t understand the question?_ ” Killian repeats sardonically, leaning against the opposite wall with his legs crossed and with a hand in the pocket of his leather jacket. “That’s a creative reply.”

David just scowls, taking one look at Sidney and Lance through the mirror before storming out of the room. Marian sighs and follows shortly after him.

That leaves the two of them. Killian looks at her expectantly, eyebrows raised. She can tell the words are at the tip of his tongue.

“I swear to God…” Emma grits out, “if you say I told you so, I will stick you in a cell.”

Killian feigns shock at her reply, resting his hand on his heart with as much exaggeration he can infuse in the action. “I would never, Swan!”

 

 

* * *

 

 

The first night they stake out Sidney’s house, Killian - predictably - insists on going with Emma.

“I don’t need a ride along for a stakeout, Jones.” Emma argues - also predictably - and glares at the leather-clad pirate propped up against her desk.

Killian gives her an overdramatic sigh in response. “Forgive me for wanting to see how the experts do it, Swan.”

“Oh my god,” Lance groans, face in his hand from the other side of the room. “someone get a video camera so we can submit this to some romantic comedy scriptwriter. I feel like we’re living a live one with you two.”

Emma rolls her eyes, getting more and more used to Lance’s - assuredly hilarious - jokes. Killian looks pleased with himself. David’s violent urges towards Killian seem to make a reappearance, if the death glare he’s giving him is any indication.

“Fine.” Emma concedes, if only to get out before Marian chimes into Lance’s commentary and David harms a part of the investigation by sending Killian to the hospital. “You can come, but it’s a one time thing. And I swear to God, if you blow our cover I will kick you out of the car right there.”

“Of course.” Killian quickly replies, a grin on his lips. “I would expect nothing less.”

Sidney Glass isn’t up to much that night, it turns out. He isn’t much for curtains, either, or being remotely interesting. Watching this man go about his nightly routine of heating up dinner and brushing his teeth is like watching paint dry.

“Isn’t this a bit invasive?” Killian asks, whispering exaggeratedly in her ear from the passenger seat of the Bug. “Watching this man sleep?”

“You know he can’t hear us, right?” Emma replies in a normal speaking voice, eyes still fixed ahead.

Killian shrugs. “I thought it would be atmospheric, Swan. They always whisper in films.”

Emma deadpans, “I doubt they have to sit and watch some curtainless criminal heat up his Lean Cuisine in the movies, either.”

“Curtainless Criminal?” Killian snorts, his voice lilting “Not quite a supervillain name, Swan.”

Emma barely bites down a laugh, which he is delighted to notice.

“Come on, love. It’s not a bad thing to laugh.” his eyes light up as he teases her without any malice, “It might be a good thing, in fact.”

“Might be, huh?” Emma says, meeting his eyes with a wry smile. Maybe it’s the cramped car on a dark night that makes it a little easier to let her guard down, but she can’t resist giving into the banter a little bit. Just this once, anyway.

“Just a tad.” he lifts his hand up to indicate a ‘tad’, pointer finger and thumb millimeters apart. “Or perhaps I just enjoy that smile of yours.”

Emma’s face falls into a grimace and she rolls her eyes. “You had to go and ruin it, didn’t you?”

“That was foolish of me, wasn’t it?” Killian agrees, unconcerned. “I suppose I’ll have to find another way to make you laugh now.”

“Or I could go back to doing my job,” she retorts. It’s a possibility that she sounds more annoyed than she really is.

Killian tilts his head in her direction, “Back to watching a newspaper editor sleep?”

Emma shrugs noncommittally, “I’ve had worse.”

“Share, then.” Killian proposes, scooting in his seat as if he’s a five year old anxiously awaiting story time. He stays in that position for a beat, ignoring the exasperated look on her face, “I want a good stakeout story.”

“Really?” Emma tells him in her trademarked skeptic tone. “You want a story?”

“Any will do.” he insists, resting his hand on his chin.

Emma is about to tell him to shut up so she can do her job, again. She is. Except… “Once I had a guy jump in the passenger seat when I was staking out his boyfriend’s house.”

Killian shakes his head in dramatic disapproval, “You didn’t lock your door? That seems quite out of character for you, Swan.”

Emma quickly defends herself, “The Bug is old and doesn’t understand new inventions like automatic locks, alright. I’m really vigilant about it now.”

“Understood.” Killian nods as if he has deep understanding on the matter.

Emma does her best to ignore the detour, “Anyway, so this guy gets in the car and tells me to drive. He’s this heavily tattooed, biker-looking guy who looks as if he’s just come straight from a Harley. I’m sitting here thinking this guy is a complete idiot for trying to carjack a cop.”

“An assuredly wise move.”

“He didn’t know I was a cop, though, apparently.” Emma amends, gesturing to her yellow car and her apparel of a leather jacket and jeans, “He just starts going on and on about how he was sure that _Jeremy is totally liking another person’s Instagram pictures_ and _have I been DMing him?_ I’m still parked in the street because he’s just threatened me with a grand total of nothing, just told me to drive. He keeps on getting more and more pissed the longer I just sit there and listen to him go on and on.”

Killian seems amused, at least, “Very intimidating.”

“Finally, I just turn to the guy and tell him, _‘I’m a police officer and your boyfriend is a suspect in a drug ring.’_ His face just starts turning purple and he just runs out of the bug back into the house like the car is on fire. I just hear him tell his boyfriend from inside the house,” she pauses, preparing herself for the best impression of a burly Southern accent - evidently the biker boyfriend’s voice - she can manage while trying to stifle her laughter, “ _‘You dirty fucking liar! You said all that weed was for your sick grandmother! I can’t believe I ever swiped right on you, you son of a bitch!’_ I arrest the guy on the way out of this house just holding back tears of laughter.”

Killian is laughing along with her this time, his dimples out in full force.

 _“‘I can’t believe I ever swiped right on you!’”_ he quotes between snickers, “That’s a new one.”

“Love in the digital age, I guess.” Emma grins, once she’s regained her composure.

“Aye.” he agrees, looking at her as if he sees right through her - a sensation that she doesn’t know what to do with. His eyes are soft on hers, “I told you I’d make you smile, didn’t I?”

Emma looks at Sidney through the window again, slightly embarrassed. She tries deflecting, “I’m such a shitty storyteller, sorry. That’s always been a strength of Henry, not me.”

“Hardly, love. I was heavily invested in your tale.” Killian protests, sitting up further to accentuate his point. “Henry is the name of your lad, correct?”

Emma looks over to him a little defensively, hardwired to be protective of her son as much as possible. “And?”

“I can’t be interested in your life, Swan?” he raises an eyebrow and she just sighs, “How old is he?”

She gives him a short answer, “He’s eleven.”

Killian presses further, “Home with his father?”

Emma glares, “Not in the picture. You can stop being nosy now.”

He puts his hands - well, hand - up defensively, “As I said, I’m just trying to solve the elusive mystery that is: just who are you, Swan?”

Emma gives him a half-smirk at that in spite of herself, “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

“Perhaps I would.” Killian answers resolutely, eyes boring into hers.

She isn’t sure what to say in response to that. A beat passes between them without either of them saying anything - Emma studying the bricks of Sidney’s house while Killian scratches the back of his ear. Killian, of course, has to break the silence.

“Eleven, hm?” he turns to her once again, much more subdued, “I know my brother and I used to give my mother bloody hell when I was eleven.”

“You have a brother?” Emma asks in reply, turning back around to face him. If she’s a mystery, he’s a series of them.

“I did,” he answers somberly.

Emma gets it and doesn’t press any further. She’s not in the mood to pick at scabs. He’s gotten pretty good at avoiding picking at hers, anyway.

He doesn’t wait for a reply and Emma is thankful she doesn’t have to come up with words to say.

“You’ve just told me a story, however, and it’s time for me to repay you. As I was saying, my brother and I used to absolutely torment my mother with our various misadventures,” he drones on comfortably and this part is easy. Listening to him, swapping stories with him is just easy. She leans in, as captive of an audience as he was and thinks if she let herself, it could always be this easy. Emma drifts off not long after, his accented voice still softly rumbling in her ear.

Emma slowly starts to wake up when it’s still dark outside, her head cradled in something sturdy and warm. Her body feels incredibly uncomfortable in the position she’s in, though. She’s half sitting, half lying down and leaning against something that she feels unwilling to part with. She’s cold and it’s so _warm_ and smells like a mixture of spice and those ridiculously expensive ocean candles she used to buy. Emma burrows further into her pillow, concerned only with more sleep.

It’s also apparently moving. Her pillow is steadily moving up and down. _Oh._

“I fell asleep.” Emma shoots up in a panic, looking around at her surroundings. Killian is on one end of her sleeping surface - the end her head was apparently on - and she’s sitting right on the center console. That explained the discomfort. Emma was not going to analyze her sleepy mind’s observations on his shoulder. “I fell asleep!”

Killian is wide awake and evidently completely unbothered by the fact she passed out on his shoulder, “Only for two hours, love, you’re fine. I watched Sidney while you were resting. He’s still out like a lamp.”

She is incredibly grateful for small favors, “Why didn’t you wake me up? I never fall asleep during stakeouts.”

“You looked like you needed the rest, Swan.” he answers simply, as if he didn’t give it a second thought, “The least I could do was let you do so.”

Emma isn’t sure whether to be grateful or annoyed.

“In addition to that, who am I to deny a beautiful woman a spot on my body.” he adds, the comment much more in character for him.

Annoyed it was. She shoves him playfully, “Shut up.”

He just smirks at her.

When Emma drops him off hours later, she decides she might be able to let go of the past. Not today, but someday soon. As a first step, she fiddles with the clasp on her neck until her swan necklace - a present Neal pocketed from some gas station they shoplifted from - falls into her lap in a heap of cheap faux-silver. Emma takes one look at it and throws it in her glove compartment. She thinks she’s let it weigh her down for long enough.

 

* * *

 

 

Three months pass without much progress. Or any progress, really. They get into dead end after dead end. She feels like they’re running in circles and everyone at the station seems to be facing similar exhaustion. They’ve been rotating out stakeout shifts - sometimes at Gold’s now abandoned shop and sometimes at Sidney’s - without much to show for it. Emma and Killian are, once again, saddled with the task of staking out Sidney Glass’ house.

Killian has been oddly quiet the car ride over, though. His only comment as she pulls into a handy spot behind a really pretentious looking shrub is, “Another night of watching Sidney Glass type away, eh?”

“If this isn’t stimulating enough for you, you’re welcome to leave.” Emma huffs.

She should’ve known that was the perfect set-up for one of his innuendos, “My, my Swan. I wasn’t insinuating you weren’t stimulating.”

“Don’t you have a job or something? I know you do boats or whatever,” she makes a sweeping hand gesture to indicate _‘whatever’_ , which he seems to be amused by, “but it seems like your full-time job is annoying the living hell out of me.”

Killian only raises his eyebrows at the thinly veiled insult. “I’m a sailor and it’s almost winter, Swan. Those are hardly the conditions for someone to take a group of tourists out sailing, now is it?”

“Oh.” Emma mutters into her coffee, a must have for nights like this. “That’s what you meant by all the boat stories, huh?”

“Aye. I’m surprised you haven’t connected the dots from all the boat stories,” he answers, a grin tugging at his lips. “You should come out on it sometimes. It’s not tourist season, but I think I could arrange a private tour.”

“Nice try.” she answers snarkily, trying her best to keep her focus on Sidney Glass’ mind numbingly boring nighttime routine. For someone part of such a private crime organization, he should really invest in curtains. Not that it made much of a difference, anyway. “Out in the middle of the ocean with only you? Do you think either of us would survive?”  
Killian teases, "What, you mean my dashing good looks and charming demeanor aren't enough for you?"  
"That's even more reason not to trust you." Emma argues, but Killian only takes this as incentive.  
"Ah, so you admit I'm dashing and charming. I knew it."

Emma rolls her eyes, “Your words, not mine. _I_ meant your inflated ego was a reason not to trust you. You don’t know me, Jones.”

"Actually, love," he uses that infuriating grin as he elongates the vowel at the end of the stupid, ridiculous pet name that's more suited for use by Victorian gentlemen in a Jane Austen novel than it is an obnoxious criminal who she has had to chase around (chase _with_ , maybe) the streets of Storybrooke for the better part of three months. “I’m willing to hazard a guess that I know you quite well.”

She raises a disbelieving eyebrow, "Oh really?"

"Mhm." Killian assents, moving his hand to the back of his head and leaning back as if he's lounging on a GQ cover rather than the passenger seat of a police officer’s rusty Volkswagen. “I know you, Swan.”

Emma bristles at this, offended in two ways than one. "Seriously? For one, we’ve known each other for a grand total of three months. For another, to repeat, you don't know me." 

Killian huffs, but otherwise is the perfect paragon of impassiveness. "I suppose you're correct. I don't know you well at all."

"Great. So now we can just-"

"I just know you like cinnamon in your hot cocoa.  You listen to more Bruce Springsteen than most 50 year old men in this city. You stopped wearing that swan necklace you always had on after our first stakeout and you keep touching your collar where it used to be when you're tempted to trust me. Your favorite movie is The Princess Bride, though I'm willing to gamble you wouldn't want to admit it. You aren't fond of anything beyond a one night stand, likely because of what some fool must have done to you to make you refuse to let your walls down." Killian lists off, as if he's relaying his grocery list instead of analyzing her more thoroughly like their precinct's therapist.   
Emma is at loss for words, gaping like a fish out of water, when he adds his final bit of collected information, "And you don't want to abandon your son like you were abandoned."

She's spent her entire life perfecting the art of never letting someone too close. Emma knows the damage of not having that strategy in place, she had to meditate on it for eleven goddamn months in prison and too long in a hospital waiting room. She's come too far, she has so much more to lose now. 

All that comes to her tongue is, "Where the hell did you get The Princess Bride from?"

If he's surprised at what she elects to reply to, he doesn't show it. "Well, it was bloody stupid of you to leave your Netflix password in a note on your phone."

"My phone has a passcode!" she’s debating nonsense, she knows, but it beats talking about...the other things.

Killian seems unimpressed,"You really believe someone can be a thief for this long without figuring out how to break in through a lass' home screen?"

Emma grumbles, "Yeah, well, back in my day all we had were hairpins and wire hangers; iPhone Hacking for Dummies came out long after I got out of prison."

“You were in prison?” his eyebrows nearly reach his hairline, “I think I fancy you the more we talk, Swan.”

“Again, with the,” Emma summons her best mock-British accent, which sounds more hackneyed Scottish than anything, “fancying.”

Killian seems almost affronted by her response, “Do you not think I mean it?”

"You snoop around my phone and all of the sudden you think you know everything there is to know about me?” Emma props her elbow on the door, leaning her head against it and boring holes into the windshield, “Give me a fucking break."

"You're a bit of an open book, but I never claimed I knew everything about you, Emma." his use of her first name unsettles her and his voice sounds too earnest, "I would like to."

"Save it.” Emma bites out, tired of whatever he’s trying to pull, “We both know I'm just another conquest to you, just one prickly enough to pose a great challenge for you."

"Challenge? Every time I'm around you, love, but in quite a stimulating way." the joke rolls off his tongue easily, but there's something else behind it too. "Conquest? You are the farthest thing from it."

“Just stop, Jones.” Emma tells him exhaustedly. “I’m not in the mood to play whatever you’re getting at.”

Killian’s protest is about to come out of his mouth, but he wisely decides to swallow it.

Emma gazes ahead, focus still on anything that could possibly be going on in Sidney Glass’ home that would help them.

There isn’t.

There never is. For months now, they’ve done this with the same result. She makes a decision.

“What are you doing?” he asks as she puts the car in reverse and starts backing. “Emma?”

“What I should’ve done from the first day.” Emma answers curtly, “You were right. We aren’t going to find anything out from watching Sidney drool on his pillow. We have to go to the warehouse. I don’t give a damn what Gold or Regina or whoever does because of it.”

Killian is on edge with her announcement. “Swan, let’s talk this out before we do anything rash.”

“If you don’t like if, you’re more than welcome to get the hell out of my car.” Emma informs him acidically.

“Emma,” he implores, “please, be reasonable about this.”

“Trust me, I’m being more reasonable than I have in months.”

He pauses a moment before speaking, and for a moment she thinks he’ll stop arguing with her decision and see she’s right about this. No such luck. Killian’s voice is so low and careful she almost has to strain her ears to hear it, but she manages nonetheless. “Is this about what she did to you?”

Emma bristles. He can’t know that, too. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“When you came into my home for the first time,  Regina…she triggered a reaction from you. I know you used to work for her.”

“How do you know that?” she grits her teeth, getting sick of how much Killian Jones apparently ‘knows’ about her.

“Research, remember?” his words don’t have as much bite as they probably should. He winces at the speedometer. “Love, slow down.”

“You and your fucking research.” Emma spits out, gently lifting her foot from the accelerator. She’s been cautious. She’s been waiting for months now and progress isn’t any more attainable. When more people get killed the blood will be on her hands when she’s still scrubbing her hands raw to rid it of Graham’s. “What good has that done, anyway? To know everything and not being able to do anything about it? All that serves to do is torture yourself and you are completely powerless. We can keep doing cute little stakeouts and waiting it out until someone else dies or we can stop it.”

“And get yourself killed in the process?” Killian’s voice is the harshest it’s been since she first interrogated him. That’s fine, she works better with anger. “I don’t quite understand how that’s aiding anyone, Emma.”

“Isn’t this a 180 for you?” she asks, voice raising, “You were insisting for me to trust you and getting the evidence we need. _I_ was the one calling it a suicide mission, then.”

His tone softens, “That was before.”

“Before what?” she fires back, confused and angry and God she just wants to strangle him.

“Emma, please…” Killian pleads. She just wishes he’d go back to being angry.

She can be angry enough for the both of them. Emma has never liked cowards, anyway. “If you’re so concerned with saving your own skin, I’ll drop you off. I don’t care. I’ll do this alone.”

“The last thing on my mind is _my_ life, Swan.” he tells her, as if she’s supposed to have any idea what that means.

“Well then what is on your mind? You’ll have to spell it out for me because I have absolutely no idea.” she tells him bitterly, “Before _what_?”

“Swan, pull over.”

Emma shakes her head, still intent on her destination. “Answer my question, Jones.”

“Emma,” he supplicates, carefully resting his prosthetic hand on her arm. “Pull over.”

She finally concedes and pulls into the shoulder of the road, hands still tense on the steering wheel. His hand hasn’t left her arm, instead it’s running up and down it. She doesn’t tell him to let go of her. Not yet.

“I don’t know what Regina did to you. I don’t know what she took from you.” Killian rasps, brow furrowed in what looks to be immense concern. “But if there’s anything I’ve learned from hunting the crocodile, Swan, it’s that she isn’t worth your life.”

“I’m a cop, Jones.” Emma protests angrily, turning around to face him. “This is what I do. I go into dangerous situations so other people don’t have to. If you can’t handle that, then-”

“Then what, Emma?” it’s not said accusingly, just with an air of dejection.

Instead of answering him, she elects to get the answer she wanted earlier. “What was your….after. What changed your mind?”

“Don’t you know, Emma?” Killian nearly whispers, hand stilling on her arm. All bravado has completely vacated him. “It’s you.”

Emma can’t find the words to reply with.

He gently presses his forehead to hers, intimately and reverently, as he sweeps a lock of her hair behind her ear. “That’s what I’m worried about. You. That’s what changed for me. I can’t stand the thought of something happening to you.”

It doesn’t make any sense. Emma flounders, still at loss for words to say. She can’t say she feels nothing, not anymore. But this is even more than just acknowledging attraction. Attraction is a known denominator, one that’s resolved with one night and leaving before breakfast. This is...she doesn’t even want to name it. Emma just nods, not wanting to move away and leave this moment in the box of Things She’s Not Ready to Deal With just yet.

“We can’t keep chasing our tails, Killian,” she manages to get out, voice low and eyes closed. She can feel his breath when he’s about to reply and shakes her head - minutely as to not to disturb whatever they have going on - before he can. “Our hands are tied. We can’t raid the warehouse because it isn’t in our jurisdiction. Trying to get information out of Sidney is getting us nowhere. We can’t keep doing this.”

“I know,” he tells her soothingly, eyes sweeping over her face as he gives her a sad, soft, smile. “We won’t.”

“How?”

Killian nudges her softly. “Let me worry about that.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

She gets to the station mid-afternoon, once she’s slept off the exhaustion stakeouts always provided once the coffee faded.

“Where’s Killian?” Emma frowns, looking around the station. He’d become an everyday nuisance around the place, always making comments he thought were hilarious to the petty criminals of the day, hiding David’s office supplies, and - in his words - keeping Emma entertained while they attempted to get a semblance of a lead on Gold. At first, Mulan had informed him that he really didn’t need to come in every day and that they’d be sure to call him if they saw fit. Eventually, they all grew used to his constant presence.

“Probably still sleeping off the stakeout,” Marian offers, in the middle of checking a bag into evidence.

“He’s usually here before I am after stakeout days.” Emma frowns, thinking of all the days she’d walked in to Killian handing her a coffee and making a joke about keeping her up all night.

Marian only shrugs her shoulders, returning to the task in front of her.

The first hour that passes, Emma dismisses her thoughts as being completely ridiculous. He didn’t work here. He wasn’t required to show up. He probably just took the day off after her crazy episode last night. Hell, Emma probably would take the next day off if one of her partners (if that was what they were, which they aren’t) pulled what she did. She’s overthinking it.

The second hour that passes, she’s given up on the denial. She really must have scared him away after that, which was fine. It was better that way. It’s not like Emma had feelings for him or anything, so it really works out for the best if he just...doesn’t show up. Easier for everyone involved, especially her. It was really perfectly okay.

The third hour that passes along with two text messages she definitely did not send, she tells Mulan she needs to make a house call to check in with Henry - his teacher called and said he was getting sick. She feels guilty for lying to Mulan, but she figured it beat telling her, _‘Hey, I’m worried over someone who I have no feelings for! He could be murdered, I don’t know, but I know that I’m just worried from a police standpoint!’_. She’ll pass on that.

The cottage has its lights off when she gets there. Emma frowns, but knocks on the door anyway. She doesn’t get an answer. Emma knocks again. She still doesn’t get an answer. Emma calls his name through the door. Nothing. He isn’t home.

No, she isn’t fucking worried.

Emma decides she’ll go back to the station and credit her short return to Henry just having a stomachache that was already over by the time she got there. Hopefully, she’s just missed him and he’s already at the station. On the way there she thinks of one too many creative scenarios. Killian dead in a ditch. Killian being held hostage by a deranged Gold. Killian having a Graham-esque heart attack, with no one to even brace his fall. Killian being killed like Milah, heart ripped out of his chest.

At this point maybe she’s a little worried. Maybe there’s a part of her that now understands what Killian meant when he told her what changed for him because she’s now realizing it changed for her too.

Killian isn’t there when she gets to the station and her heart seizes up in her chest when she sees the look on their faces. Lance is fiddling with his watch in what she recognizes as a nervous habit. Marian is gnawing on her lower lip. David just looks contemplative.

Mulan just seems uncharacteristically discomforted when she walks in, “Henry feeling better?”

Emma’s excuse flies out the window, completely forgotten. She quickly demands, “Tell me what happened.”

Mulan straightens up, seemingly much more secure with a straightforward command, “Regina called. She says she arrested someone who she hears has been working with us for breaking and entering into her property this morning, thought she’d let us know. It’s Jones.”

Emma squeezes her eyes shut, fists clenching.

“Fuck.”

  
  



	5. 5: around our bodies it's warm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I told you guys I’d get the next chapter of this up! I still have more oneshots planned, but I’m still, 100%, completely planning on being here for Fallen Empires, too. I’m terrible about abandoning projects, sometimes, but that’s the last thing I want to do with this story. Expect updates weekly (?) probably? I’ll try my best! Thank you guys so much for all the feedback I’ve gotten so far.  
> There are references to death/murder in this chapter, but nothing that should disturb you if you’ve read previous chapters (...which I’d obviously recommend before jumping in on chapter 5...). I hope you guys enjoy!

“I’m going down there,” Emma blurts out as soon as she’s exhausted her knowledge of curse words in the English language. “I have to go down there.”

“Down where?” David repeats dubiously from his perch on his desk. “To Portland?”

“Where do you think?” Emma rolls her eyes, doing her best not to lash out at the people in front of her. Mulan looks anxious at the prospect, but knows better than to fight her on this. Marian just frowns in what seems like understanding.

“I’ll go with you,” David tells her, immediately making a motion to stand up.

“David, you have enough of a temper as is. I’m right behind you, Emma,” Lance replies seamlessly, already shrugging on his coat. “Which one of us to you want to drive?”

David only sighs in exasperation, but makes no move to challenge him.

Emma crosses her arms, a frown marring her features. “You don’t have to come with me, I don’t need babysitting.”

“I know I don’t have to come with you and my plan wasn’t babysitting,” Lance retorts easily with no bite in his tone. “You just seem like you could use someone having your back, is all.”

Emma deflates. “Fine.”

Lance nods, taking this as affirmation. “Mulan, please call Kathryn and tell her to meet us there if you will?”

Normally Mulan would bite his head off about being the one to make the orders, but this time she just picks up the phone and motions towards the door.

They end up taking Lance’s cruiser - her hands are shaking too much to drive, but she doesn’t say that and he’s polite enough not to comment on it - and he toys with the police lights just to make her feel better. It doesn’t work, but she appreciates the thought all the same.

Portland is a thirty minute drive away and Emma’s nails are already bitten to the quick five minutes into it. They seem to hit every red light on the way over, which isn’t helping matters. All she can think of is all the damage Regina can cause in just those thirty minutes. It took less than that for Graham to die. It would be Killian’s blood on her hands, too, if Regina decided to repeat the past.

She gets an image of her finding Killian’s body slumped in a cell, refusing to wake up and his pulse slowing sluggishly to a stop. Emma would beg him over and over again to _just wake up_ and _she’d do anything_ to just get him to open his eyes. They would load him in a stretcher and she would be completely powerless.

“Let me worry about that,” he’d told her.

Emma shakes the thought out of her mind, squeezing her eyelids shut as if that will somehow dispel it.

“Hey,” Lance tries. “It’s going to be okay, you know. I get the feeling Jones gets himself into situations he needs to worm himself out of all the time. Plus, this time, he has us here to help him.”

Emma just shakes her head, pursing her lips together as if that would prevent them from wobbling. “It’s my fault.”

“What is?” he asks, his expression furrowing in confusion.

“I-” she hesitates. “Last night, when we were out on the stakeout...I was just so frustrated and angry with everything and how the investigation was going. We kept trying and all we did was hit dead end after dead end so I just started driving to the warehouse. Killian stopped me and told me he didn’t want to get me into danger or whatever, and he...told me we wouldn’t keep chasing our tails and that he’d worry about that.”

“So that’s why you think Killian is in a jail cell right now?”

She nods, unable to look Lance in the eye. Emma can’t see him look at her for what she is, an idiot that got her partner (because that’s what he is now, isn’t he?) into a potential death trap.

Lance defies her expectations. “No matter what, Emma, that man’s actions are his own damn fault, not yours. He made the decision to go after Regina, we’re making the decision to make sure he can’t get his ass into any more trouble.”

Emma only sighs.

 

* * *

 

 

Emma practically storms into her former workplace, Lance hot on her heels. She doesn’t even stop to greet the people who used to be her co-workers, just wrenches Regina’s office door open.

“Can I help you, Miss Swan? Mr Elliot?” Regina blinks, hardly even looking up from what’s in front of her on her desk.

Emma practically growls the words out. “What did you do with Killian?”

“Mr. Jones?” Regina asks, painting on expression of innocent indifference. “Why are you so invested in him?”

“That’s my business,” Emma grits out, the temptation to punch this woman in the face growing by the instant. “I asked you a question and I’d suggest you answer it.”

“He’s in a cell,” Regina answers, tapping her pen against her desk with a sigh. “Last I checked, he passed out on the cot muttering something about swans in his sleep.”

Emma’s jaw drops, but she tries to collect herself as quickly as possible. Lance stiffens.

“You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?” Regina asks coolly, raising an eyebrow in challenge. “You always did like mixing business with pleasure, I suppose.”

That’s it. Emma swears she’s going to fucking strangle her. “You have no idea who you’re dealing with, sister.”

“Is that a threat?”

Lance puts an arm in front of Emma before she has the chance to reply with actions rather than words. Emma does her best not to squirm in his hold.

Lance sighs, then asks, “What did Mr. Jones do again, Ms. Mills?”

“I told you, he was breaking and entering into my property, which is a felony.” Regina replies acidically. “I would advise the both of you to go back to policing your own town instead of trying to tell me how to police mine.”

“That’s not our intention, Ms. Mills.” The words taste abhorrent on Emma’s tongue, but she pushes on. She has to maintain some hint of professionalism, after all, but the temptation before (and now, definitely right now) to march in intent on a knock-down, drag-out outweighed her desire to make nice with the woman. “But we believe we have a right to ask about the case of a resident of our town.”

“He committed the crime in our town, he’s ours to deal with,” Regina replies brusquely. “Am I going to have to escort you out of my office as well?”

Lance opens his mouth and, at that moment, a tall, statuesque blonde marches into the room, heels clicking on the expensive tile.

Kathryn has arrived right on time. Emma hasn’t felt this intense of a surge of relief in what feels like forever.

“Can I help you?” Regina asks, with all the air of condensation she can sum up.

“I’m Kathryn Midas,” the blonde says coolly, lifting her chin up without so much as flinching at Regina. “The Assistant District Attorney in Storybrooke. I believe we’ve met a few times before, yes?”

Regina huffs, gesturing to the office they’re all standing in. “Well, as you can see, this isn’t exactly your jurisdiction, Ms. Midas.”

Kathryn remains calm and collected, par for the course with her. You could spit in her face and she’d stay stiff and composed. “May I ask why you’re holding the department’s consultant?”

“Consultant?” Regina repeats with a disbelieving sneer. “And here I thought he was just Emma’s boyfriend, considering she always did have the worst taste in men.”

Emma clenches her fists, stuffing them in her pocket to prevent them from hitting her face. Graham used to tease her about her constant battles with Regina, but now he wasn’t even here to hold her back because - hey - Regina murdered him.

Kathryn remains unruffled. “I believe I asked you a question, m’aam. There’s no need to come after our department’s officers’ personal life instead of answering it.”

Regina huffs dramatically. “As I’ve repeated a hundred times before to you people, he was breaking and entering into my property.”

“Your property?” Kathryn repeats with a raise of her eyebrow. “Are we speaking of your home or something else?”

Regina bristles, clearly bothered by the question. “It’s hardly any of your business, is it?”

“Forgive me, Ms. Mills,” Kathryn shrugs, still just as level-headed. “I’m just trying to get the facts straight. It wasn’t your home?”

“Fine, since the semantics of it seem to drive you all so crazy, the man broke into a warehouse I inherited from my mother.”

Emma gapes, looking over to Lance who looks just as impressed as she does. Regina admitting to owning the warehouse - almost an evil lair of sorts - and Kathryn had just managed to get the information out of her without so much as breaking a sweat.

“Thank you for answering my question,” Kathryn responds as if she hasn’t even noticed anything in Regina’s statement. “But excuse me if I follow it up with yet another one. No one was inside of your warehouse, correct?”

“A breaking and entering is still a breaking and entering if no one is inside of it, as I’m sure law school should have taught you.” Regina is as pedantic as ever. “The place was abandoned, but it’s still my property.”

Kathryn acts as if she’s hardly bothered by it. “Was there any evidence of forcible entry?”

“The door was unlocked, if that’s what you mean.” Regina grimaces.

Kathryn shrugs. “So, you’re speaking of unlawful entry, then, hm?”

“If that’s the word you want to use, fine.”

“So, you mean Killian Jones is being kept in custody for misdemeanor trespassing?” Kathryn can barely keep the victorious grin off of her face.

Regina’s face pales, but she gets right back on track. “Misdemeanor trespassing doesn’t involve intent to commit a crime, as I’m sure you know full well.”

“Did he have any intent to commit a crime that you know of?” Kathryn cocks her head to the side, practically goading the woman.

Regina just looks frustrated. “Yes, his criminal record and the fact he broke into my property.”

“Trespassed on your property, Miss Mills,” Kathryn drawls easily, watching as Regina’s face looks more and more as if it’s about to burst.  “And someone’s prior convictions don’t determine their current ones, we have this fascinating invention called the fifth amendment and the double jeopardy clause. Unless you can substantiate your claims of criminal intent, I’m afraid all we really have to look at is a trespassing charge on an abandoned building.”

“You’re the A.D.A.” Regina only scoffs at Kathryn in disbelief. “Not his defense attorney.”

“Ah, but as you pointed out I’m not in your jurisdiction and thus am not tied by any ethical obligations. Plus, Storybrooke crime is a little slow. Usually ethical obligations and, well, for most prosecutors a busy schedule would bar you from being able to act as both, but all things considered…” Kathryn looks as if she’s pondering it for a moment, laying her hands flat down on Regina’s desk. “I see no reason why I would be unable to do my job and represent Mr. Jones at the same time.”

You could almost hear a pin drop in the room.

“Fine,” Regina counters, doing her best to sound unconcerned. “You can represent Jones all you like. That doesn’t change the fact he has unquestionably committed a crime and we intend to hold him accountable to the highest extent of the law.”

Emma has no idea how a town like Storybrooke has managed to get their hands on a lawyer like Kathryn. She’s asked Kathryn this before, why such a high-powered attorney like herself was doing prosecuting crimes in the middle of nowhere. Kathryn had only shrugged then and said she liked having a light workload and being able to spend more time with her husband.

“You see,” Kathryn begins with a grin on her face and Emma has never felt so much respect for the woman before she did in this moment. Lance looks as if he’s praying for a bowl of popcorn to appear in front of him. “If this goes to court formally, which it will if you don’t release my client soon, there are all sorts of witness testimony about unfair penalties I can dredge up that would make this department’s life absolutely miserable. You don’t want the Justice Department sticking their nose here, do you?”

Regina sneers. “You’re bluffing.”

“Did I stutter, Miss Mills?” Kathryn replies, not so much as flinching.

There isn’t much to be said after that, besides Killian Jones being issued a $4,000 ticket (Emma winces at the price, but Kathryn haggled the best she could) and Regina muttering something about getting Leroy to release him from the holding cell to ‘pay his goddamn dues.’ Regina practically shoos them out of her office in a fury, her heels clacking angrily against the tiles as she slams the door shut behind them.

 

“Kate,” Lance grins, soon afterwards. “Have I told you lately the enormous respect I have for everything that you are and do? And that I worship the ground you walk on?”

Emma has to second the comment, but she’s hoping Kathryn didn’t sign her own death warrant with her stunt; she idly makes a note to herself to remind Kathryn to never eat a bite Regina offers her, just in case.

“I swear to God, you guys are idiots for not getting me involved sooner.” Kathryn scowls, but her words don’t sound as harsh as she’d likely want them to be. “I can’t imagine all the excuses to wipe the smug smirk off that woman’s face I’ve missed out on. I’ve always hated her.”

Lance puts his hands up defensively, still with a smile on his face. “I’ll never doubt your legal superpowers again.”

“After that, I’m even a little scared of you,” Emma says with an easy smile.

“I already tipped off the Justice Department, by the way.” Kathryn admits, tossing her hair behind her shoulder in a breezy movement. “Mulan gave me the run-down, finally, so I sent in a complaint. You know how long these things take, though, especially given Cora Mills’ position…”

“Yeah,” Lance finishes with a cringe. “Still, better than nothing. You should’ve told us about the witnesses sooner.”

“And you should’ve told me about the other thing,” Kathryn retorts, but the words lack venom. “Tell Mr. Jones he’s paying his own damn ticket, along with...let’s say $250 worth of legal fees.”  

The corners of Emma’s mouth twitch. That would show him, if being jailed for a few hours didn’t. “I would expect nothing less.”

“That’s my discount rate, mind you,” is all Kathryn says before walking back to her car.

20 minutes later, Killian is lead out of his cell, still dressed in his clothes from yesterday, by an irritated looking Leroy (with whom Emma had gotten along with when she’d worked here, oddly enough). Killian only looks slightly more ruffled than when she saw him last.

Emma lets go a sigh of relief she didn’t realize she was holding and she swears she hears Lance do the same.

“I told you I’d find a way,” Killian says glibly, smiling widely at Emma as soon as he sees her.

It’s as if something inside of her switches at the words and she realizes the full impact of the stunt he’s just pulled. He could’ve died. Regina could have imprisoned him for an indefinite amount of time. A number of things could have happened, if not for the human miracle that is Kathryn Midas.

Emma swears she could kill him.

“You absolute _fucking_ idiot,” she growls with all the venom she can manage, practically charging at him with her pointer finger in his face. “What the _fuck_ were you thinking?”

His jaw is agape and he looks quite surprised by her reaction. “Emma, love, please.”

“What possessed you to do something so stupid?” Emma continues her tirade, not even phased by their setting or the fact that Lance looks just as baffled as Killian does. “Honestly, I knew you were capable of doing stupid shit, but this just takes the cake.”

“I don’t understand - we’re right where we want to be, Swan,” he leans down to whisper the words in her ear and it’s only because they’re in enemy territory that she’s even letting him come this close to her after that. “They know they can’t keep playing the same game when we’re on the field. Now, we’ll get the reactions we-”

“We should go,” Lance mutters to the both of them. “We should just...getting going before, well.”

Emma can only huff and start marching out the door to the department’s parking lot. Killian and Lance follow her.

“This is the exact opposite of what we want, Jones,” Emma nearly shouts the words once she’s in the passenger side of the cruiser, putting her hands up in exasperation. “We want them to slip up after thinking they’re safe. We don’t need to give them warning enough to do what they want. All we did was show our cards, not theirs.”

Killian shakes his head. “You don’t know Gold like I do, love.”

“You’re right,” Emma acquiesces, tone still caustic and bitter.

Killian releases a sigh of relief.

“But I don’t know you like I thought I did, either.”

“Swan…” he protests. “If you would just-”

“Stop botching my investigation,’’ is all she says before going silent the entire ride back.

 

* * *

 

“Welcome back, Mr. Jones,” Mulan greets once they step back into the station. “Kathryn called, said you owe her $250 and the Portland Police Department $4000.”

“I owe what?” Killian exclaims, his hand covering his pocket as if this will somehow relieve the burden on his wallet. “I’m beginning to see what people are saying about the criminal justice system being monetized…”

“And you owe us an explanation,” Marian says, leaning against Mulan’s desk. “What even convinced you that doing something like that would be a good idea?”

Emma winces. She’s sure he’s going to rat out what she almost did, what she would’ve done if Killian hadn’t stopped her. Emma would be the one in the cell instead. She lashed out at him for being stupid when she almost did the same thing. In his mind, she must be just an angry hypocrite.

That wasn’t the real reason she was angry, though, his grand attempt at heroics. That was part of it, but she felt angrier at herself for even _letting herself_ become upset by the prospect that she might lose grasp on something she never really had.

Emma isn’t quite ready to confront that.

Maybe it’s for the best, if he’s angry with her.

“I just got frustrated with all of the dead ends in the investigations, is all,” Killian mutters in response. Lance raises an eyebrow in Emma’s direction, but says nothing. “I apologize for putting you all in a less than favorable situation.”

Marian, Mulan, and David seem to accept this explanation, albeit with some exasperation.

“At least tell us you found something out about the warehouse.” David sighs, massaging his temples.

“I’ve bad news,” Killian admits, cringing slightly. “Regina’s security alarms may have went off before I could manage to do much more than take a peek into a dark room.”

“So you saw nothing and found nothing?” Lance clarifies, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“If you say it in that manner…”

They all groan in virtual synchronization.

“Well, we’re glad to have you back,” Mulan admits a little reluctantly. “You’ve proved to be a valuable asset over the pa-”

“Am I being paid a compliment? By Sheriff Fa?” Killian nearly falls to his knees in an exaggerated display of emotion. “I never thought I would see the day.”

Mulan rolls her eyes. “See if it happens again, just for that.”

 

* * *

 

It’s just Lance and Emma left at the end of the day, finalizing the paperwork they had to catch up on after leaving abruptly earlier in the day. They work in silence, for a little while. The only sound between them is the clicking of pens, the tearing of paper, and the occasional staple. He keeps on casting worried looks in her direction and it’s starting to get on her nerves.

Lance finally says something after one particularly aggressive staple (from her end). “You know, I get it.”

“Get what?” she replies quickly, intent on focusing on the task in front of her if it means avoiding this conversation.

“The deal between you and Jones,” he answers thoughtfully.

Emma resists the temptation to let her head drop and thump against her desk the best she can. “There is no ‘deal’ between Jones and me.”

“See, that’s what I mean.” Lance gestures in her direction, his hand coming up to rest under his head as if he’s contemplating the meaning of life rather than her love life. “You keep on pushing that away, insisting there’s nothing.”

“Because there isn’t anything. He’s just a pain in the ass that tips us on cases, that’s all,” Emma insists, her signature on a few forms quickly becoming angry scrawl. “There’s nothing between us.”

“Right,” Lance says skeptically. “I react like that when someone I have _‘nothing’_ with gets arrested.”

Emma gives up on her current task, swiveling her chair around to face him. “What do you want me to say, Lance?”

“I don’t want you to say anything, Emma. I just want you to be honest with yourself for you. You won’t be happy until you do.” Lance sighs. “Believe me, I know.”

Emma frowns. “What do you mean?”

He laughs. “You think Ginny and I started easily?”

“Oh no.” Emma groans. “I don’t need another one of these, Lance. Trust me, I already got one from Mary Margaret.”

“Oh, so Mary Margaret and David met by having an affair?” Lance challenges with a raise of his eyebrow.

If Emma had something in her mouth, she’d be spitting it out. _“What?”_

Lance gives her a self-deprecating shrug. “I guess I don’t share that story much. You can understand why, though.”

Emma brings her knees up to her chin in her chair, wrapping her arms around her legs. “You can’t come up with an opener like that and leave me hanging, you know.”

“Fair enough.” He laughs. “I met Ginny through the first boss I’d ever had, Arthur. I was just starting out as a cop back in New York and I was completely determined to prove my worth, prove to my family that I could make it as a police officer. I graduated top of my class at the police academy with dreams of making this world a better place and so on and so forth.”

At Emma’s nod, he proceeds. “Arthur was the sergeant of our force and my role model for a period of time. He introduced me to his wife, Guinevere, and I was completely entranced. She was unlike anyone I’d ever met before - brave and stunning and selfless to a fault.  I kept trying to tell myself I wasn’t completely enamored with her. She was my friend’s wife for crying out loud.   She was so hurt when I kept on avoiding her after a while, said she felt like she was losing one of her best friends. By that time, I had already come to view her as much more than that.”

“So what did you do?” Emma asks, scooting forward.

He snorts. “I continued ignoring her until she wouldn’t let me ignore her any longer. Ginny confronted me at my apartment, saying that she wrestled my address out of one of the guys at the station. Asked me why I hated her.”

“Let me guess, you told her that you didn’t hate her, you loved her.”

“No, actually,” Lance admits, looking a little chagrined. “I slammed the door in her face. She kept knocking on my door though and one day I just...I told her that I wanted to be fair to her and fair to Arthur and I wasn’t being fair if I wasn’t being honest with her about my feelings for her. Then she was the one who ran and I didn’t blame her.”

“But she came back,” Emma replies, tracing patterns on her boot with her fingers. “Obviously, or you wouldn’t be married.”

Lance exaggeratedly shakes his head. “You already have the story spoiled, now it’s no fun. After a few weeks Ginny knocked on my door again. She said she couldn’t lie to herself anymore, either, and that she was miserable with Arthur and all she wanted was me. We kissed and things, well, escalated. It was one of the happiest nights of my life. Ginny sent him divorce papers a few days later and I decided I wasn’t much for New York City policing, anyway.”

“And you moved here,” she finishes matter-of-factly.

“I moved here,” Lance repeats with a nod. “I’ve never been happier. I want you to be happy like I am too, Emma. You’ve been through enough, you deserve to be.”

“And what?” she rolls her eyes defensively. “I need Killian to be happy?”

“No,” Lance says the word as if she’s being deliberately obtuse (and maybe she is). “You don’t need anyone to make you happy, Emma. You do need to let yourself be happy and not be afraid to take the risks that will get you happy.”

“What if I’m happy now?” she replies, hunching further into herself. “I have a job that I love, my brother, great friends, and the best son in the world.”

Lance’s reply is kind, but honest. “I know you wouldn’t be happy if something happened to Killian Jones and you never let yourself come to terms with how you feel about him.”

“All that would do is make it worse,” she replies, ignoring how she’s virtually agreeing with the fact that she does have some sort of feelings for him, tugging at the shoelaces on her wrists. “Trust me, I know.”

He notices the shoelaces and his gaze goes contemplative. He has a general idea of the story behind those, just not Regina’s involvement. He was friends with Graham, too. “There’s that old saying - _is it better to have loved and lost or to have never loved at all?_ ”

Emma exhales. “Or, as I’m familiar with it, _are you willing to chance greater risk of harm to yourself in exchange for a relationship_?”

“It doesn’t prevent you from getting hurt, Emma. You know that full well. All that pushing away of Jones and you still reacted like that when he vanished.”

“Exactly,” she replies. “Imagine how much worse it’d be if I let myself get any closer to him. All it did was prove that I shouldn’t have let it get to the point that it did.”

“Emma,” he sighs in frustration. “You’re missing the point. I tried to prevent myself from loving Ginny with everything I had - we had a marriage in between us, even - and it didn’t work. I still fell in love with her. All I did in pushing her away and trying to prevent it is hurt her, which is the last thing I wanted to do. Despite your bluff, I know you don’t want to hurt Jones. I see the way you look at him.”

Emma frowns and offers a weak sort of retort. “I don’t...look at him like anything.”

Lance can only scoff at this. “Emma, the second you saw Jones walk through that door today you looked as if you’d seen Jesus Christ himself revived to make his Second Coming on this earth. Granted, a few seconds later you looked as if you wanted to kill him for scaring you like he did, but you wouldn’t even react that way if you didn’t care about him. You know that.”

She doesn’t even know how to reply, at this point.

“He looks at you the same way, you know,” Lance points out. “The guy is clearly head over heels for you, today he’s even proven he’d do anything for you just to make you happy. You would do the same for him, even if you don’t want to admit it. You proved that today, too.”

“I can’t…” Emma trails off, voice reluctant and nearly breaking. “I can’t let myself get hurt again.”

“It’s too late for that,” Lance tells her with a sad smile. “You’re already invested. Now, you just have to make the decision if you’re willing to hurt the both of you in an attempt - that’s going to be a failure, by the way - to save your own feelings or if you’re willing to come to terms with how you feel about him and potentially make the both of you the happiest you’ve ever been.”

Emma gnaws on her bottom lip, looking contemplative.

Lance grabs his things with a sigh, apparently deciding to forgo the paperwork in front of him entirely. “But, obviously, it’s your decision to make. I’m just speaking from my experience and speaking as your friend, someone who wants to see you the happiest you can be. If Jones is who can make you happy, like I get the feeling he is from how much you obviously care about him, I want that for you. If he isn’t, that’s okay, too. I just want you happy.”

He’s halfway out the door when she blurts the words out. “It’s just hard.”

Lance nods in understanding, pausing at the door. “Sometimes the best things in our lives aren’t easy, Emma. Ginny and I weren’t. I know the first few years of raising Henry weren’t for you and I know your brother fought like hell to help you the best he could and you for him. It’s the fighting - sometimes against ourselves - that make the end result that much more worth it.”

He leaves on that note.

Emma toys with the words in her head, picking them apart and fleshing them out in an effort to disprove them, somehow. She sits like that for a while in the empty station, curled up in her chair and studying patterns in the tile, the pile of papers in front of her completely forgotten Her only companion is silence and maybe that’s a good thing, right now.

Maybe she just needs to think.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback is what keeps me going, even if it's just a short "Hey, I like this!" it means the world. Just a reminder.


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